


Year Six

by 9_of_Clubs, Quedarius



Series: Alternative Means of Influence [6]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Coercion, Digestivo parallels, Emotional Roller Coaster, Established Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Extremely Dubious Consent, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, More Magic, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-03 18:42:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 51
Words: 79,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5302619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_of_Clubs/pseuds/9_of_Clubs, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Your memory palace is building. It's full of new things. It shares some rooms with my own. I've discovered you there. Victorious." </i><br/>—Hannibal, 3.07 "Digestivo"</p><p>After the attack at Hogsmeade, Hannibal Lecter's fate hangs uncertain as time ticks low towards trial and sentence - Verger money intervening for the worst at every turn. Without many options open, the unorthodox looms tempting.  Still, it's important to remember nothing is ever as easy as it seems... and sometimes sacrifice is necessary for gain. But if there's anything we know, it's that neither Will nor Hannibal are ready to give the other up without a fight. </p><p>Hogwarts AU. This is part of a multi-fic series, we update twice a week. <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4302699/chapters/9751368">Read from the beginning here!</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Year Six - chapters will be posting twice a week, on Thursdays and Saturdays!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flashing gif below!

**Will**

* * *

There are times, it seems, when everything holds its breath.

Lady M seems to be determined to keep our days busy, as if to distract us from the fact that Hannibal is basically on house arrest. Sometimes we have lessons, often she’s put us to work in the garden. I like watching Hannibal at these times; it’s something so unlike him, the sheen of dirt and heat, but somehow it still seems right. He cradles a rose between careful palms, clips those that have withered too far, a rhythm of skin and shears that soothes him, and in turn me.

We used to go out, sometimes, when summer had just started, but not since the whispers and the dark looks turned Hannibal’s way. He is stoic, as always, pretends not to notice, though I felt magic trembling in my hands as we left the symphony, the voices loud in my ears still, though nobody spoke. I am not as good at calm.

He glanced over the paper—the day the article in the Prophet came out—with careful eyes, with a shrug. “People will talk,” he said, and I met Lady M’s eyes over our food but said nothing. Lunch went on uninterrupted. But that night, I heard him pacing his room, the rhythmic fall of his feet, and I turned in my bed, stared down the wall that separates us. I pressed my forehead to the cool wallpaper, traced the floral pattern in time with his steps.

Our days are full, and so have slipped from my grasp before I’ve even had a chance to catch my breath. But the nights stand still. Each hour an eon, nothing but the thick summer air and the press of the trial, closer with each slow moment. The world holds its breath, we pretend to sleep. I listen to Hannibal’s tossing and turning in the room next to mine.

I don’t know why I chose to write again tonight, there is nothing new, not since we were whisked from St. Mungo’s to the cottage (a loose term for the summer home, borrowed from Hannibal; the house is bigger than my dad’s several times over) outside of Hogsmeade. The one that, in a different world, a different Will and Hannibal spent that weekend. The crickets still sing loudly, the perfume of late-summer flowers rides in on cool night air from the garden.

Hannibal and I still drift around each other, unsure and unsettled.

I’m sitting at the desk in the library, writing by candlelight because I can’t sleep, I can’t talk to Hannibal, and I just don’t know what else to do. There was piano music drifting through the halls a while ago. He does that sometimes, even in the middle of the night, and Lady M never says anything about it if it keeps her up. For all her outward grace and calm (I can easily see where Hannibal must have learned it) I don’t think she sleeps well either.

It’s stopped now though, and there’s footsteps in the hall. The door swings open. I cover the page with my hands, though I look at them, confused and a little betrayed as I do so.

“Oh,” he says. He’s wearing one of those ridiculous pajama sets, and there are circles I want to smooth away under his eyes. He hovers in the doorway a second, his feet balancing on their arches like they’re ready to spring back, should they need to.

“I apologize. I didn’t know you were in here. I won’t—”

The words twist into my chest, a sharp pain, and maybe he sees that because he pauses; though he doesn’t move his palm from the doorway, his feet don’t ease. There’s fear in the lines of his body, within the walls of his mind, tension, all the time now. It’s muddled, mixed with other things the regaining of memories has left him with, but at least some of the fear sounds of me.

“Stay,” I ask, without meaning to. And then, so he knows it’s not a demand, “Please.”

The shift in his posture is subtle, but it’s there, and his mouth very nearly curves into a smile which I return, maybe a shade too enthusiastically.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he says, crossing into the room cautiously, as though it is mine and he the guest. “So I thought I’d find a book.”

I watch intently as his fingertips skim along the spines of several classics, but look away before he can catch me staring, my cheeks hot.

“Try a Tolkien,” I suggest, through clearing my throat, seriously doubting there are any hobbits to be found on the Lecter bookshelves. He pauses in his search, an amused look crossing his features, and I smile again to let him know I’m teasing.

I’m pleasantly surprised when, after finding a suitable choice, he doesn’t retreat back to his room, instead sinking into an armchair near me. I could, if touch was still a common occurrence between us, reach out and brush my knuckles across his arm. Only a little leaning, one socked foot unfolded from beneath me and pressed to the carpet for balance, and I could smooth his hair, soft and loose. I let myself picture such a moment, just for a second, aware even as I do that it wouldn’t be complete, empty of that warm look that I long for in response, the tilting of his cheek into my palm, the acknowledgement of connection. And even if it did, the echo of buttons clattering to stone would freeze my hand before it could even begin to move. I’ve forgotten how. How to touch, what it feels like, how to ask for it.

Hannibal turns a page and I shiver, envy the book.

“I received a letter from Jack Crawford today.”

The words catch me by surprise, and the room seems suddenly several degrees cooler. He does not look up from his reading, his face is carefully blank. I swallow around a tongue that seems to have glued itself to the roof of my mouth.

“And?”

In the space of his silence, the hum of insects seems very loud, the whisper of cool air across the curtains more a roar.

“Mason has released his memory,” he says at last. “And Margot. Jack advises that I do the same.”

I blink a few times, because I don’t know what to take from this non-reaction.

“But that’s… that’s good, right? Mason provoked you, he used an unforgivable curse, they’ll have to see—”

He laughs, dryly, and I want to tell him that I’m more afraid of this cold, uncaring Hannibal than the one that rattled cupboards and shattered windows with his rage.

“I very much doubt that the memories are whole, or particularly accurate, if Mason gave them up willingly,” he says, looking up from the book, but not at me. His eyes find the blue sliver of light the window casts over the mantle, past the glow of our candles.

“Will you?” I ask, my breath shallow. I feel every inch between us, and I swallow again, wishing I could offer more.

“Will I what?” he asks, eyes finding the book again, though he can’t possibly be reading.

“Do like Jack says; give them your memory?”

He stills, but for his mouth, which twitches very slightly, a flickering show of his teeth that can in no world be compared to a smile. It’s a soundless snarl, I’ve seen him do it when presented with something he finds particularly detestable.

“No.” he answers, curtly. The page turns. My mouth is open on the question, to ask what harm it could bring—not possibly more than Mason had already done, with his warped version of the truth, but I close it again. It doesn’t feel like my place.

“Alright,” I say, and the sound is very small. I turn back to my page. And at least it is something, he does not leave. Maybe tonight, we will read together until the sky grows light, like we used to.

Well, almost.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hannibal**

* * *

Journal,

Summer begins, shifts, ends. And I allow Will to stay. Though from the moment I do, I await his departure as inevitable.

Perhaps it would have been kinder—to him, to me, to someone—to force him to go. But I am selfish, as I have always been, and when he had murmured quietly that he would not, I told my Aunt I would have him stay, and she, relieved, had made all the arrangements. Even a floo visit with his father, so that they might see each other in the flames. I had lurked behind a corner to hear the warm voice fill the space, greatly bewildered, but grateful, and Will, reaching for the image with the barest graze of tears in his throat, but not in his eyes.

_Something’s come up, Dad._

He’d made the grave pronouncement and excluded all of the details, spun a tale of vagaries that did not involve deranged boyfriends and destructive magic fueled by uncontrollable rage. I do not introduce myself, stay in the darkness, away from the brightness of the fire, and I believe, I know, the current of our connection there, ever present, but frail, that it disappoints him. But as with everything these days, he does not say, careful around me, always careful, and I do not make excuses. I try to find an apology, as the fire sputters out, and he spends a long moment looking at it, before turning his gaze to me. But it catches claws in my throat and I cannot form it. How do I say, _Well, thank you for burning your time with your family so that you may spend it in silence with me._ Our eyes stay locked, but in the end my lips fall shut and he nods. We move past the moment into the next one without acknowledgment, I for his aches, he for my unhappiness. And we both pretend to my aunt to be hopeful. She likes him, of course she does, and that glints pride in me, somewhere deep. But I am too removed from it, from myself, to feel anything properly.

The days that pass us are beautiful. Picturesque in the quiet garden, the wind blowing waves through the tall sweet grass. He lays sprawled, next to me, rather at a short distance away, and I sit, my knees to my chest, the fluff of dandelions blowing lazy around us. We had hoped to be alone this summer, when his fingers would skim beneath my shirt, find my skin, and drift upwards, imagined sun warmed kisses stolen in the heady air. We did not, I think, hope to be alone together, float like strangers past each other in the same orbits. Invisible walls twisting higher with every day we do not tear them down. But there are too many quiet blows to field already, the walls are sanctuary, to knock them down, even to allow him to enter and rebuild, seems too great a task. They crystallize harder with every snide article, sidelong look, every time they come with their hard stone faces and ask the same questions over and over until my throat burns, from the speech, from the irritation, from the scream that burrows through me. But I am good, I restrain, to the best of my abilities, do not change my tune as Jack suggested, do not pretend to be sorry, but at least the candles do not extinguish of their own accord in the stifling windowless rooms they insist on, stripped bare to be makeshift cells.

_These are my Aunt’s rooms._ I want to snarl, want to make the table fly apart at its seams. But I keep the magic steady, I keep my words blank.

_Did you intend to harm Mr. Verger?_

_I did not._

_They look at each other and I wonder why we are even wasting our time if they have already decided._

_It is easy for me, to wish to play the monster when they look at me narrowly, in another world perhaps I would, but I play only ice instead._

_It is hard to melt ice, even if it is only a disguise._

I know that it is the ice that frightens Will most of all. That when he chews his lip and looks at me, he wants to tell me to stop, to be angry, to be terrible, to be vicious, but to cease being nothing at all.

I want to tell him I do not think he would prefer it, but since he does not say, I do not either.

And I do not forget that he kept the truth from me. I can hardly fault him for doing so now, of course, because despite being unapologetic, I am not fool enough to think this was a welcome turn of events. I realize that I have made the mess, shattered the glass on the floor, but I cannot, of course, admit it. I cannot admit that I too do not like myself like this so much. Even though perhaps I am more myself than ever. That I too, long distantly for the self I had allowed myself to be molded into, for the edges that had quietly been erased and redrawn. A sketch taken from ice to ease. It is almost laughable, and on occasion the fits take me, chuckles that ring too close to sobs for my comfort, to think that I might count the days back to when the greatest problem between us was that I could not stop buying him socks.

Had it really all happened in the space of this year? How could it— but of course it could. Because redrawn and undone as I might have been, I am still me, was me then am me now, and will always be so.

I accept it.

But I do not know if he can.

So as the summer blows through, the warm weather unfurling, the breezes twisting through leaves, still I wait for him to leave.

The letter from Jack marks the end, I think, when I read it, burn it with the tip of my wand and then regret not ripping it because perhaps that would have felt more satisfying. The last thing they could want from me before the time to end this wait comes. This endless summer wait, that has all the same moved past us in a blink. A stretch of blue and misery.

But I cannot give it to them.

I will not give it to them.

Will not allow them _into_ my head, to poke and prod and see, truths that I have only now discovered for myself. They have no place to inhabit me, my thoughts, my safe places and the dark spaces. I will not let them see her or taste the prickle of darkness that danced through my thoughts. There is not so much trust in me that I can allow that.

_It doesn’t look good for you Hannibal._ Jack’s words had growled up from the page. _Give us something to work with._

As though _he_ wants to save me for anything more than his precious whims.

If they cannot touch my mind, they cannot touch me. And so I cannot allow them to have this. But Will, when I speak, when we sit, almost open in the cover of night, Will asks in his soft voice, in his _Don’t set Hannibal off_ voice, which I greatly resent but likely only imagine.

_“Will you?”_

And I can scarcely believe that he would even ask. That he doesn’t understand that I won’t. That he doesn’t know enough to know that I won’t. The ugliness creeps out of me before I can stop it, the delighted cackles of the creature that lurks, that had evolved another level of life with the ruin of Mason, long antlers and budding claws. He would rend me, he would _be_ me, and in so many ways, he is not so far off already.

“No.”

I say shortly, clamp my lips together, though the other me is delighted still; _Will you?_ A mockery and I tighten my lips. Say nothing else to prevent saying the wrong thing entirely. This is what you have to love, I think hard at the page as Will assents and goes quiet. This, all of it. I can’t destroy it. And more than that. I know I won’t. Can only temper it or feed it. But it will never go entirely.

We have tried to erase him, but he has proven unmovable, and we are the same.

_Could you?_

We sit together until morning, another morning past, another day further, apart together. He falls asleep curled on the chair and I watch him for a heartbeat, and then drift closer possessed by exhaustion, by the tired quieting of my mind as the ice fades, and the monster fades, and I left with as much me as I am allowed. The sky colors purple and I brush a hand along his cheek, then disappear.

Neither of us can or will, it would seem.

I lay in bed, close my eyes, and still I wait for him to leave.

H.L. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Will**

* * *

Somehow, the days pass.

32 days until the trial, and we are repainting a guest bedroom—a room which, by all visual cues, did not need the refurbishment—and I wonder, shoulders aching pleasantly with the work, if Lady M is running short on things to keep us busy. I keep glancing at Hannibal, who’s doing the edgework (he handed me a roller and, with a ghost of his old smirk, told me I was only to work within the taped boundaries), watching the steady flick of his wrist, the concentrated expression. An impulse draws through me, old, residual code in my bones. I want to pluck at his shirt, run fingers through his neatly-combed hair, until his eyes are forced to leave his work and he lunges, mock-snarling for me, a smile and a kiss that though I only imagine, burns through me, hungry lips and pressing tongue, a blush that spreads to my ears.

My roller stills, my hands flex around it, involuntary, as I consider.

I am not so subtle as I think, and his eyes find mine. They catch the light from the window he’s framed by, _just so_ , turning them in an instant from pitch to butterscotch.

“What?” he asks, and there is some thrum of anxiety that I can’t quite untangle.

Paint drips from my roller to the plastic-covered floor.

“Nothing,” I smile, try to reassure. Wait for the reprimand that, in previous days, could not be long in coming, as the tacky splatter of eggshell continues from my roller. Hannibal only blinks, goes back to the window, and when I reach tentatively for that worry I glimpsed in him before, it slips from my grasp. There is nothing there.

 

27 days until the trial finds me again in the library, poring over the most recent letter from Bev. They’ve all written; Alana, Brian and Jimmy, and once even, a neat sky-blue envelope that sent Hannibal’s hackles up before he could slam that mask of cool indifference back on.

“Has she written to gloat?” he’d snapped. I didn’t answer. I had no idea why Molly would write me now, of all times, but it turned out to be mainly about quidditch, and the weather, with one rather transparent request at the end to stay safe.

That one, I burned.

They’ve all written, but Bev is most persistent, plying us each week with messy letters addressed to us both. She begs for us to visit, calls out the most recent Prophet article, shares legal advice someone told her dad. All of them are rife with the same barely-controlled panic that scratches claws along my ribs, that forces my mind to push back any thought of _after_ , any possibility other than that the charges will be dismissed and Hannibal allowed to return, with me.

Hannibal doesn’t write, and so I do, although my answers can hardly be satisfying. She and I are in the same boat as far as knowledge goes. But I’m stumped, stuck on one line.

_How is he, really?_

My fingers tap idly on the arm of the chair, I look up at the vaulted windows, the pale buttery light of day outside. I listen for the telltale sounds of piano, or pacing; the clatter of pots and pans. But there’s nothing. How is he really? I have absolutely no idea. When we talk, it’s light and false, and when we don’t, I can hear something screaming, and I don’t know if it’s me, or him, or nothing at all, just my slow slip into madness as the day draws nearer.

 

Three weeks until the trial, and I am in Lady M’s wing of the house. The air is cool here; she keeps the shutters drawn, mostly, and it smells faintly of some spice. Cloves, maybe, sweet and strange, mingling with parchment.

She smiles when I step through the doorway, her book falls into her lap.

“Will,” she says, makes a small gesture to sit. I look around in the dim, airy space, and find a green embroidered chair, but it seems a little far away from where she sits near the window for us to talk without shouting. I hover, unsure, and god I regret coming, despite knowing that I have to, putting it off because she's already given me so much. My face is hot and I’m suddenly hyper-aware of my limbs, their propensity for tangling. I should really probably sit, or say something, or—

She smiles, this one shifting her whole face, and stands, shadows passing over her features in soft stripes.

“Here,” she says. A sweep of her wand, and the chairs slide to the center of the room. The green one stops just behind my knees, and I more fall than sit.

“Now,” she starts, and sits gracefully, robes pooling in a neat cascade of silk, “what is it that’s bothering you?”

The letter is in my pocket, but I don’t pull it out to show her. The words seem to stick in my throat.

“School starts soon,” I blurt. _An excellent start, really, great job Will_. She inclines her head in a faint nod.

“I saw that you received your list today.”

She waits for me to continue, patient, her head tilted very slightly, and I’m reminded again of Hannibal. I wonder if it’s conscious, how much he echoes her. My throat closes.

“I also saw,” she says, after the pause stretches, too long, “that Hannibal did not. Is that what this is about?”

I nod, focus on my feet. My dad’s voice echoes in my head, _are you sure you’re not putting them out?_ concerned, as always, of asking for too much. And despite my ashamed, muttered reassurances, I was not sure. _Am_ not sure. And here I am, asking for more.

“He’s—well, you probably know,” I murmur, “suspended. They said. Until the charges clear. Or…”

I can’t bring myself to think about the alternative, so I don’t. I look down, try to clear my throat. She doesn’t say anything, and when I chance a look at her, her eyes are focused somewhere else. She is very young, to have Hannibal as her charge, I realize. I doubt that she'd foreseen any of this. And I am ashamed, I can’t seem to drag the question from my mouth, but I have to, Hannibal had gone so silent at the sight of our letters, mine thick with the year six shopping list, his only one thin slip of parchment.

“I was wondering,” I manage at last, face impossibly hot, “if I could, that maybe—”

She draws herself back from whatever path her mind had wandered down, and manages a tired curl of lips, something like sympathy flooding her face.

“Will, you cannot quit your studies. Your father would never allow you to stay here again.”

I nod, and wish I could just shrink away.

“I know. I do. But I was hoping that… that maybe there’s a way to stay here? With him, until the trial? I mean, it’s close enough to the grounds, I could...”

There. It’s done, it’s said. Her eyes widen incrementally, I’ve taken her by surprise, and the flustered embarrassment fades from my chest, replaced by determination. I’ll beg, I realize. I can’t stand any more of those doleful looks from Hannibal, the ones that seem like I’ve already gone somewhere, and I can’t parcel out why or where he thinks I have to run to.

“Of course,” she breathes, and it feels like relief, mine and hers both. “We would love for you to stay. I’ll write ahead to the school, I’m sure we can work something out.”

“Thank you,” I let out my own sigh, a choked laugh, “thank you for this, and for everything.”

She reaches across the small space between us, her fingers brush, hesitant, the back of my hand, and I still beneath the cool touch. Her eyes are dark, near-black. I do not reach, but her mind finds me, fills me with the sudden rush of compassion. She says nothing, but I hear it just the same, _help him_ , as if she’s murmuring it out loud, and I wonder for a moment if maybe she isn’t.

I turn my hand over, curl my fingers around hers.

_I’m trying._

She smiles, a touch sadly, as if she hears.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hannibal**

* * *

Journal.

Will tells me in quiet tones, a stutter of words, but then bravery from somewhere, and the rest of the sentence comes out more clearly.

“I’m gonna stay here once school starts. Lady M said it would be fine.”

And what he means and what I hear, though we are barely touching each other’s minds, but for the shallowness of presence, is _I am going to stay with you until the trial_. Stubborn determination behind the uncertainty of speech.

It catches me unawares, I admit, so lost in the terrible ache of his leaving as I have been for months. A lingering fear for most of the summer, a burst of unyielding anxiety in the moments where he looked at me as though he could not fathom me at all. Simmering always below the surface, waiting for the cementation. But finally here a clear path, a cogent way created, one that would neither hurt me unnecessarily nor force the conversation too terrible to have. He would simply go to school, as was natural, and I would not, as it seems is fate. A mere factor of the forces in our lives beyond our control. I could not admit, even to myself, though I do now to you, that if he left, even as we are between us, the walls would curve in on me and the air would scrape.

There would be nothing, and the promise only of nothing to come. In the night, in the tatters of my mind, still in pieces from upheaval, no energy in me to begin to force order back along the ruins, the thought of imprisonment haunts me. Even to my pillows, I pretend not to fear, even as my stomach twists emptily, I have rather lost my appetite these days, and the agony starts to claw. I crawl out of the covers and brush into the openness of air, late summer roses casting scent, the whisper of wings and scratches from the night creatures. It is so lovely, all of it, so unendingly beautiful, and if I—if they…

It would all be taken. There would be no leaves turning color, no melodies of autumn drenched in distant smoke from fires, no endless white days and purple skies of snow, and drifts that turn the world pure and silent, no spring for rebirth to come, only the endless twist of metal and cage, stifled empty air, and silence. Nothing in prison, I imagine, could inspire the strings of my mind to play. Industrial, bleak. I feel the twist of my stomach throb, knot up to my throat, perhaps forever, for years, at least, and what damage might be done on my understanding by then.

And distantly in those moments I envision other losses, that I might have not had to contend with in other shapes, in other forms of me, as the monster purring dark in my ear. Already I have not spoken to Bev since the day before the incident. What had I said? I think I had been cross, I cannot recall being anything but cross for the past months, at best dismissive. And Alana. Only quiet with her, we had sat in the Great Hall and I had said nothing and she had laid a hand on my arm, promised me that it would improve, with her ever cheerful smile. I do not believe I smiled back.

And with Will, of course. Will who does not find me in the darkness of night, as he had so long ago, when the nightmares struck and neither of us could put forms to the demons. Will, who perhaps does not sense my turmoil, or if he does, does not know how to approach it any longer.

Will whom I love, who is still here, who is staying, and yet already I count him as a loss.

All of this time, I have waited for him to go, and now he tells me he will stay.

Stands behind me and proclaims instead of the words I have been prepared to hear for the entirety of the summer, _I have to go Hannibal, I can’t stay Hannibal, I know this hasn’t been easy, but there’s no choice, Hannibal._ And in my head. _You’re a monster, Hannibal. I knew this is what would happen._

_I can’t stay._

I turn my head, just slightly, an inch over my shoulder, hooded. My voice comes distant from my mouth, it sounds grating, as though I have been crying, as though from somewhere very deep.

“Do you not wish to return to the castle, to be with—” I pause and lose breath, _with the rest of them_. With the people that are good for him, who care for him, who would never have dragged him here. He could forget, I think at my darkest, he could forget, and if I am trapped in a cage somewhere far, he should.

“I’ll see them in class.” I can hear the shake of his head. His words are still careful, still following me. “It’ll be fine, it’s only a little way away.”

All of this time, I have been waiting for him to leave. And now he stays, chooses to stay.

Here.

To stay with me.

All of this time and my perspective shifts. And I wonder, I wonder if the voice in my head has been only mine, confusion, he had kept the truth from me, he had lied, because he thought that if I knew, I would do exactly as I did, and we would not survive that. And now I have done it and he asks to stay.

I wonder if I have created this distance—some of it leftover from before, yes—but widened, in my own despair. Had I widened it? Because I know that soon I will lose him, choice or not. And the pain of that. I narrow my lips.

The pain of that seems impossible. If I had to leave him and the biggest problem between us was that he dripped paint onto the floor. If I had to leave from being wrapped up in his arms, wrapped up in his mind, instead of from here, far away, the space between us threatening already.

I do not think I could simply stop seeing him every day, if I allowed myself to love him as I have. The realization is sharp and tastes of bitterness. And we both suffer.

I have always been selfish.

I miss him. In this moment I miss him. But is it not better to learn to miss him now, with the beauty of summer and the comfort of the house, than later, when I am alone and there is nothing to comfort either of us?

“I am sorry.”

I tell him quietly, but the words manage to tremble, there are no tears streaming down my cheeks, I think I am beyond tears.

The me in my memory sobs, curls up on himself on the snowy floor, the corpses of his enemies surrounding him and cries for the love he has lost.

The blood stains me, the snow will come, but I am only frozen now.

I do not qualify what I am sorry for and sweep out of the room.

Leave him standing there, brilliant in the sunshine.

H.L.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh, well. I realize that is quite the note to end on, but you'll have to bear with us, as always. We are still in the calm before the storm; albeit an unsettling, tense pause.   
> On a happier note, hello to everyone who has just read through for the first time; we're so happy to see your comments! Come talk to me (@crazyphases) or Ro (@the-winnowing-wind) if you want, or send us a question at the AMOI blog (@alternativemeansofinfluence), we love a chance to show off just how big we've made this world. And to those of you that have been with us all the way, thank you, as always, for inspiring us. (Sorry you're all getting the sentimental "let's start this year" message from me now; Saturday was a very long day for me.)
> 
> See you Saturday :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Will**

* * *

 

 

_Hannibal,_

_I’m going to stay at the castle tonight. Please tell Lady M not to worry, I just have a lot of homework and I know she doesn’t like me walking back in the dark. The same goes for you; it’s just for tonight._

_See you tomorrow._

_Love,_

_Will_

 

The second I sent Winston with the letter, I already felt guilty. For the lie about homework, for the worry I knew it would cause anyways, the way it would keep him awake long into the night. Our time together could be limited, only weeks now, the barest drip of days until the trial and the potential of separation it threatens. Years could stretch before us, some great indeterminable distance. And yet, here I am, scribbling restlessly in a journal instead of telling these things to him.

Some days I’m very good at being tough, at answering his sighs and mournful looks with smiles, with talk intended to distract, with reminders of how I love him—and oh I do, so, love him.

But other days I am weak. Other days the thought of putting that face on, of watching him memorize me beneath his eyes as though the decision has already been made, as though he was always condemned to be taken from me, makes me want to scream, to shake him, to make him listen to me instead of just letting eyes slide over me, betrayed by something I haven’t done yet.

Today was one of the latter.

The whispers began, I’m sure, long before school started, have probably been circulating through households and letters since the days were still growing longer, not shorter. I wonder morbidly how many conversations Hannibal has been a footnote in over the summer. _Did you hear?_

Because Hannibal is not here, or the Vergers, the whispers surround me instead. Something of his scent on me, maybe, or perhaps it’s just become public knowledge that he and I… that we, well. That we are what we are.

At any rate, I have to keep a strict patrol of my mind; no time for forts, this has become a veritable barricade. Easier than it once was, to block others out, to hide behind my walls and remember the river. But... I wish I could call up a physical deafness at times too, because they’ve ceased to watch their words, and their whispers find me, their glances. An echo, as I round the corner; a Gryffindor who I am very sure was nowhere near us that day relating the story in graphic, gory detail. Speculation abounds as to why Hannibal did what he did, the theories ranging from him being an agent of pure evil (what the Vergers would have people think) to the one a tight-lipped girl revealed to me in the common room.

“I think it’s just awful,” she said, placing what I’m sure was meant to be a comforting touch on my arm. I was inclined to agree; I find many things to be “just awful” currently. What, specifically, she was talking about though, I hadn’t the faintest.

“Sorry—what is?”

She pursed her lips somehow even thinner, her eyes screamed of sympathy. A toss of her wild curls, and she lowered her eyes, as though even talking about it might cause me to retreat.

“We heard about—well. We heard that Hannibal was just defending you.”

I paused, shifting my bag up my shoulder, and reviewed the day’s events, trying to make sense of what she was saying.

“I wasn’t—”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure Mason will get what’s coming to him. Anyone would have done the same as your boyfriend, if.. well…”

I began to piece together her implications, but I was too stunned to force any words out. Taken aback, a little, that my part in the story had been reduced to the wailing girl in King Kong’s arms. She squeezed my shoulder, leaned in,

“And if you ever need to talk…” Her words were dripping with compassion, but there was a strange, hungry undertone that made me positive that even if whatever debauched, piecemeal version of the story she’d been fed was true, I would in no way feel like confiding in her.

If there’s anyone who’s taken this rumor mill worse than I have, it’s Bev. It’s certainly not the first time Hannibal’s been the topic of gossip, but still, she prickles at the slightest mention of it, going so far as to curse loudly at a scared second-year who had the great misfortune to bring it up to his friend in the Great Hall today over lunch. As the boy, red-faced and shiny-eyed, left the table, I looked dolefully at Bev.

“What,” she’d snapped, spearing her potatoes forcefully rather than meet my eyes, “he should keep his fucking mouth shut if he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

On her other side, Jimmy and Alana looked at me with wide eyes.

“She cries sometimes,” Alana said, later. We were perched in the large window at the end of the fourth floor corridor, books in our laps. Her voice was tired, brittle. It echoed with the same weariness that I felt.

“And she hates crying, so she tries to hide it from me, and then I feel horrible because I pretend like I don’t see, rather than dealing with it.”

I looked up from my arithmancy book, the symbols swirling into nonsense anyways. I was intrigued by this line of conversation, the familiarity of her words. She looked out over the fading autumn day outside, the people walking and smiling, on their way to the quidditch pitch for the game. I realized I didn’t even know who was playing, it’d been so long since I’d gone. Even the thought that it would have mattered to me, once, seems strange and distant.

“She’s just,” Alana looked down, tongue running over her lips. When she returned her gaze to the window, her eyes were wet. I made a helpless noise, reached for her, and she let me. It felt _good_ , I realized, to have someone tucked against my chest, to lean on me rather than pulling away. The warmth of contact, the admission of truth; that everything is not, in fact, fine, that someone is feeling as shitty and scared as I am.

“She’s so afraid that he’ll lose, because if they take him…” she said thickly, muffled against me, “or that the two of you are planning something stupid and dangerous, and I—”

I smoothed her hair, thinking that I would gladly take a plan, even something stupid and dangerous. But that probably wasn’t the best thing to tell Alana just then.

“I know. Me too.”

And all in one day. I try, I try hard to be tough for him, I know that he needs it, but today… to go back to that house, to pretend to Hannibal like none of this had happened, to smile and tell him empty things about school, how everyone sent their love. To skirt around Brian’s absence from our group, Jimmy’s sheepish look and promise of _He’ll get over it. He’s just being stupid, you know the way the papers make it sound._ To sit across from him, silent, at the dinner table, and wish that he’d crumple, that he’d yell, that he’d do _anything_.

To watch him shift back when I reach, as though to be touched by me would hurt too much.

For just tonight, I can’t. Tomorrow we’ll resume our dance of calm, but tonight, I’m too tired to pretend that I’m not just as afraid of losing him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Hannibal**

* * *

Journal.

I stiffen at the rustle of brush that does not come from the wind. If they are out there again, my teeth are gritted and I creep forward, reaching reflexively for my wand though it is no longer in my possession. If they are out there—

It is a moonless sky tonight, but soft lanterns glow light into the shadow, and even from a distance I can make out a singular form weaving around in the mist. My aunt has instructed me to wake her if I see them again in my restless wanderings. (The first altercation did not exactly do much to endear me to the public. Pale and snarling.) But I resent that, I resent that I need her to make them go, that I need to care at all what they think. And Will is gone tonight, a quiet note about school work, that strains with desire to be anywhere but near.

I sent back a _Fine_. that was was neither generous nor improved my mood, but my fingers would not be moved to make more and sat with my tutor’s notes until night fell, before finding myself out on the paths.

The figure moves closer. Slight, feminine. Familiar.

I move to step back into the cover of shadow as she nears, swearing loudly when she hits the defenses with a thump, a rather loud thump. Always reckless. It will get her into trouble one day. Another series of swears and then.

“Lecter, you come over here this instant and lower these wards.”

I blink silently.

“I can smell your cologne from here, asshole, I don’t need to see you. Right. Now.”

In my mind I weigh my options. I could turn away, go inside, refuse to see her an evening more, hear about it later as an addition to the list of my sins, but a part of me wants to see her, misses her. And the louder part is simply aching for a battle that is safe, for a release of tension that will not be plastered onto the Daily Prophet nor will end with Will’s pain heavy on the end of my knife. I should turn and go, because of this. But instead I near, the breeze, an edge of chill now, riffling through my hair.

I do not lower the wards.

Look at her silently through them as she pushes her palm against the invisible barricade. The untamable voice in me, which I refuse to label fear, whispers that this is how it will be.

“Blocking spells.” I tell her tonelessly. “For the journalists.”

“I’m not a journalist.” She does not look good up close; rumpled and worn, tension eroded worry lines into her face. Her hair is a frazzled mess, there is scarlet in the whites of her eyes. I pretend as ever that I am immune to guilt. Wait for the tirade.

I do not acknowledge her words, I do not lower the barriers.

It comes.

A slow steady pour which gathers steam.

“You haven’t written.”

Accusation mingles with bitterness.

“You haven’t visited.”

Perhaps she too just needs a release.

“You haven’t even goddamn so much as smoke signaled that you’re still alive.”

I think to tell her she could not know if I did or not, but I keep my lips shut, let her anger simmer into me. She’s angry, she’s furious, it’s better than the eggshells that everyone else has chosen.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I only stare at her, _through_ her, let the words resonate through me, come pounding down.

“What, nothing to say all of a sudden? Fuck you, Hannibal. You love talking. Telling us we’re wrong. At least tell us you think we’re useless if that’s what you think. Tell us we’re dumb, that we couldn’t do anything if we tried, that you’re ditching because we’re not good enough or smart enough. Because there’s nothing we could do. But god—fuck you, don’t just ditch.”

The anger turns breathless and I taste the tears that stretch and seam through it. I find with quiet disbelief that they prickle in the edge of my sight too, and I stop looking at her. She pushes a step forward and tries to chase my gaze.

“Stop responding to letters. Stop acting like we’re friends, that you ever cared at all? I _know_ you do, Lecter. I know it. Not just about Will, not just about yourself, about all of us. I know you do.”

Does she?

Perhaps she would not need to repeat it so many times if it were truth.

“But dropping off the edge of the map like this? You’re not twelve anymore Hannibal. That’s not okay. We all care about you. We are all worried sick about you. About what might—” Her voice catches and ends. “And the only thing you can do is hide away like a coward.”

I have never pretended to be brave.

Her inhales come rough, in and out of her lips, wet and then furious, her nails clenching into her palms.

“What would you like me to say?”

My voice is carried away by the wind, toneless, empty. And she laughs, swears some more.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, huh?”

“I have not changed.”

She laughs again, wipes away tears with the back of her hand.

“You know what, Hannibal. You have,” she shakes her head. “You really fucking have, if you want to let your stupid pride acknowledge it or not, you have. And this is a piss poor time to revert.”

“Oh, is it?” I borrow her bitterness. “Is it a poor time for it, Bev?” Gleeful exhaustion, she glares, hisses back.

“Yes. It won’t ever be a good time.”

“Because, naturally, they’ll acknowledge that I’ve made some friends, have a boyfriend that, that I—” I stumble, and the words should not be quite so acidic, lodged somewhere in my throat, and I _hate_. Again. “...the faintest glimmers of what it is to be normal. And they’ll think to themselves, _we should let him go back to that_. He was _happy_. Forget everything else, he deserves it. _His friends are sad_.” The sarcasm drips from my teeth, and she grits hers and says nothing.

“It is better like this.” I say into the emptiness and she snaps back, or tries to, something that sounds of

“ _No—it isn’t_.”

But I cut her off, the screeching inside my head too loud.

“I DID IT, BEV.” My voice rises out of its register for the first time in months and then sighs right back down, dark and black. Not a scream, but not voice; lower, lower, furious clawing to finally say the words. The empty void of the sky. “I did it. _I_ — did it. I did it. Me, I did it”

I do not sound incredibly sane.

“I butchered his face, I melted his skin.” I’m hissing at her, but I can’t stop. “I steamed his bones and made them to mush. I did it, Bev. I did it and I am not apologetic, I did it, and perhaps I did not mean to, but I didn’t _not_ mean to either. I did it and, out of my mind or not, I wanted to. They will take one look at me, their gazes directed by Verger money, and they will know. They will ask if I’ve been sociable, if I’ve been well adjusted, if I’ve played nice, and they will know. They will look at me and they will see the darkness, Bev.”

Maybe I am looming, maybe my eyes are black and stone, some invisible alteration come across me, because she shifts back like she’s never even seen me, but refuses to break my gaze. “Because it is there. And I did it”

She opens her mouth again.

“We could—”

“No.”

_No_.

My hands are in my hair.

“No, no you can’t, and Will, can’t. And that I love you, and that I love him, is not going to change any of it. It is not going to save me, Beverly. Neither of you can save me, and neither of you can keep me. I am who I am and I did what I did. And they are going to _crucify_ me for it.”

Give word to the fear, let it out, own it.

“They are going to put me in prison for years.” My breath catches and twists. “They are going to lock me in that empty room and there will be nowhere to go and there is _nothing_ you can do. And there is nothing I can do. _Years,_  Beverly. The time will pass for you, it will freeze for me.” My voice is frozen, I am frozen. “Do you think it not better like this? It’s better for you like this.”  

_It's better for him._

But I can hear the curl of uncertainty twisting into my voice.

“What good will it do you to miss me? Be angry, hate me, resent that I refuse you, and forget.” Lower still.  “I am too selfish to tell Will to go, though thankfully my better nature does it for me. But it will be the same for him. I will be who I was meant to, and you will continue you your lives, and we will cut our losses. Forget that we all pretended for a moment that we could sidestep fate.”Quiet. “Lessen the pain all around.”

“Pain reminds you to keep fighting.” She murmurs when the absence of my voice makes the night too barren.

“Do you not think this is better?”  I persist. Stubborn, but there’s a new ache to my words, a new wound torn through.

She takes the step forward again and looks at me. She is afraid, I see the fear. Of me, of the world, of losing what we’ve created. And for once, I’m listening.

“No.”

I let the wards drop with a murmur, and she all but falls forward, wraps her arms around me.

H.L.


	8. Chapter 8

**Will**

* * *

The afternoon is all but faded, one more day lost.

The last traces of light disappear in time with the spread of lantern-glow across the walls of this unfamiliar room. From downstairs, in the parlor, piano drifts, and I recognize the tune as one Bev was practicing yesterday, a mournful sound that had Alana snapping, uncharacteristically, _can’t you play something else?_ I wonder at the chances that it’s coincidence. I lean back against cold covers, close my eyes and imagine Hannibal’s hands as he plays.

When I wake, it’s dark. The sheets are tangled around me, and sweat prickles cold across my skin; the music has stopped. I reach beside me for Hannibal, unthinking, and when I find only air, a sound tears itself from my chest, half sob.

_This is how it will be_ my mind murmurs, in a voice that I have to acknowledge as my own. I try to shove it away as I sit at the edge of the bed, just breathe for a minute, ground myself in the room, the reality; the color of moonlight silvering the wallpaper, the smells of dust and furniture polish, sun-warmed wood cooling in the night air.

He won’t give them his memory. For pride, for fear they’ll find some worse truth to draw from him. Maybe to protect me, I think sickly, remembering again the wild churn of thoughts not mine just before…

I stand, tear my shirt over my head, dig through the drawer for a fresh one.

Without the memory, we have—what, _my_ testimony, who only got there as Mason dropped, wet, to the cobbles?

I pull the new shirt on, breathe the comforting scent of laundry soap, and feel anger—hot and only momentary—at Margot, for refusing to testify.

Panic seizes again when I have nothing to do, my hands clenching and unclenching at my sides, and I pace without meaning to. Magic curls through me, soft and tempting, I feel it in my blood, in my hands. I want… I want to tear down the walls of this room, nowhere left for me to hide from Hannibal or him from me. From the fear, his disappointment. These could be our last days together. Could I stand knowing that the last time I saw him, it was silent and scared, without me?

The window catches my eye. I want to take my broom out, and I let myself imagine the cold wind across my cheeks, the sight of the stars, endless above the cloud layer.

I open it with a heave; they’re old, the weights clunking heavily in the frame as I do so, and I climb out onto the roof. It’s freezing, but I hardly feel it, just a small sting as my bare feet clamber over the shingles, the wind snaps at my clothes, draws them tight against me. I can see, faintly, the sprawl of the town beyond our gates, and farther, mist draping heavy across the valley, grays and greens and the deep, blue-black sky.

I try, I desperately do, in the cold smells of autumn, I try to imagine a world without him where I am okay. I think of dreams I had before, small though they were, and try to fit them back together without the missing piece.

Empty. Maybe once, I could have been fine with quiet, with solitude, with the ache of loneliness as soft and familiar as old denim, with woods and whiskey, a case now and then. A life I had once imagined for myself, far from where I could hurt anyone and far from where they could bother me.

But not now.

I think of the first time I saw him, small, unsmiling as we took our seats in the steam of the classroom. The only two that had no one else to try to be near. I wonder if I knew then, if I had felt something shift, and I decide that I couldn’t possibly have known how he would rearrange me. _Change_ me. Just inches away from each other, and I doubt _he_ knew. Now that I’ve known him, felt his skin on mine, whispered in the dark into the small hours of morning, laughed until our sides ached; known what it’s like to have someone look at me and understand, to tell me not just _you’ll be okay_ but _it’s alright, me too_ …

It wouldn't be just a dull ache, a feeling that there must be more, but the sharp knowledge that there _is_ more, and I let him slip away from me. The certainty doesn’t make it easier, but it is something. A melody, sad, maybe, but the discordant notes have dropped away, marked out and replaced.

I can’t.

I _won’t_.

There is another window a few feet from my own, the one that leads to his room. I haven’t been in there since we came here, but I look at it now. I see that it’s wide open, and it hurts, I know it for what it is: a bid for fresh air, while he can still get it. Preparation for walls closing in, the future that he’s already resigned himself to.

In this last space between us, I hesitate, pull in a shaky breath, and the chill finally seeps through. But I can feel that he’s awake when I reach, the twine of his thoughts murky, not unlike my own, and it eases through me, as does the familiar sound of his voice when his face appears in the pale glow of starlight, confused,

“Will? What are you doing?”

I laugh, because it _is_ ridiculous, but it fades in my throat as I really see him, pale and sleep rumpled, and made more than a little nervous by my balancing on the parapet as I am. My breath catches. I’ve been missing him before he’s even gone, not seeing him when my eyes follow, focused on the cells and structure as though I could save them somehow for the long days ahead rather than on _him_ , in all his frustrating, complicated, terrifying, beautiful reality.

“Can I—”

I don’t even get the request out, when he’s grabbed me by the arms and pulled me, tumbling, into the room. We hit the floor in a heap, the noise we make against the floorboards satisfyingly real. He is warmth tangled beneath me as I shiver, up on his elbows to look at me with dark, searching eyes. One hand comes up, and his fingers catch my chin, tilt it up, and I can’t make a sound, my throat has frozen up, all the things I want to say—to confess—suddenly stuck there beneath his touch.

“What are you doing?” he repeats, soft now, and I don’t know if he’s talking to me or to himself.

“I’m sorry,” I manage, at last, a gasp. The pad of his thumb feels just beneath my lips, and I am shivering, and it’s not—entirely, at least—with cold, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lied, no matter what. I should have trusted you. I know what you did, and... what you might still do, and it scares the hell out of me, Hannibal, but thinking of losing you,” a noise in my throat, strangled, “I can’t—that scares me more.”

He’s looking at me as though he can’t believe I am here, as though he mistrusts his senses, that I am nothing but dust and shadow. His fingers have stilled on my jaw. I want to kiss him, want to press every inch of myself to him, to _prove_ , but I don’t move. There is a moment of held breath between us.

“I forgive you,” I breathe into the seconds that separate us, “For all of it. Any of it.”

His hand smooths, flattens itself to my cheek, thumb brushing a line, and I can’t help but lean into the touch, though I don’t let my eyes leave him. I think of books, of black and white keys, of all the times I’d envied anything his hands held instead of me.

“Will you forgive me?”

It’s just a tame brush of lips, but my heart stops in my chest when he leans forward and presses his mouth to mine, lips warm and satisfyingly real, his hand at my face guiding me forward. I make a weak sound in my throat when it ends, protesting the space when the lack of it was so nice.

“I thought you would leave,” he says, and I shiver again, feel the words against my own lips, we are so close, “when you saw what I am.” His voice is rough with the drag of all the summer days and autumn nights that we’ve passed alone.

I laugh, our foreheads pressed, and think of the life I’d tried to picture in the cold just minutes ago. It isn’t a pretty sound.

“I’m not going anywhere, Hannibal. Not without you.”

And, in the end, maybe that is all I need. It’s all him. The reassurance that he feels the same, that I’m not crazy for this twist of fate that pulls me, guides me, makes me hurt and makes me mean, makes me something other and still, somehow, something more than what I might’ve been. In the dark, I whisper all of these things until they don’t make sense, if they ever did, and I know that he understands anyway. Our hands clasped, he pulls me into bed, against him, warming goosebumps from my skin. And as sleep settles, my voice slurring and fading, I give his old words back to him,

“We could leave. If you want. We can leave all of it, tonight even.”

I mean it, I would drop it all. I would say goodbye to family, our friends, Jack Crawford and his cases, and magic altogether, if I had to. And he knows, feels truth twine in my voice as he feels my heart in time with his.

He doesn’t answer but to kiss me again, lingering, slow. It hurts, to be this near again; another of those sighs escapes me. And in the quiet, he murmurs,

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the song that exemplifies this chapter, and in fact most of their relationship in this year of the fic, for me (Q) is "Cold Arms" by Mumford and Sons. I know what that name calls to mind, but it's not fast-paced and banjo-y it's an acoustic guitar song, and the lyrics are just fucking, ugh. Perfect. 
> 
> _And I know what's on your mind_  
>  God knows I put it there  
> But if I took it back  
> We'd be nowhere  
> You'd be nowhere again 
> 
> And I literally sat here for like ten minutes trying to figure out which part of the lyrics was more perfect, but the important thing is that it ends with " _you stay._ " 
> 
> So if you take anything from my little ramble, author to reader. Remember that while the days ahead are going to get very dark, I promise that they are going to face it together. _They've_ promised. And we know how Hannibal feels about promises, right?
> 
> Thanks, as always.  
> —Q


	9. Chapter 9

**Hannibal**

* * *

Journal.

 

_“I know.”_

_And I do._

“This is certainly a change in tune, Mr. Lecter.”

Jack’s eyes are narrowed as he appraises my intent. A floo instead of an owl, and he had apparated in minutes. Will is still asleep in bed, in our bed. I try to think of that, a quiet shield against the pry of fingers into my thoughts, because surely, the prying will come, the extraction of a memory that will be only mine for moments longer. Which contains in it truths I have barely comprehended myself, but perhaps, truth enough to save me.

 

_“But we cannot.”_

_His eyes are wide in the moonlight._

 

“It has been quite a trauma.” I respond, as politely caged as he is, through gritted teeth, as though I had not threatened to lay this blame across his shoulders, and he had not prodded against the sorest of all my points. “But with the trial so near…”

I have done my best to appear innocent this morning, though I do not think I can fool Jack. I have forgone the ties and the waistcoats, the jackets and the gel. My hair falls loose over my forehead, my shirt is simple white. Childlike, I hope. The boy who went mad with grief. That will be the new picture of me. I will have to discuss her, over and over, I will be reminded of what I wish now I never recalled, I will be forced to re-live and re-think it, in agonizing repetition before vermin, I will have to apologize to that vermin, perhaps beg, but I will do it.

 

_“Can’t we?”_

_I know that he would. That he is serious. I can taste the depth of his determination on my lips where I kissed him, so I kiss him again, because I can, a lingering, aching pass of touch, perhaps less kiss and more...completion. I long to bury my fingers through his hair, to pull him to me and indulge in pretending a while longer, but there is no time for that anymore._

_“We could—” there is a twisted eagerness to his voice now, a rabid desperation to make me see, “...we could climb on the broom, you could take some things, we could sell them. I know some muggle skills, you’d learn. If we hid for long enough, we could—”_

_The laughter that falls from my lips, is for the first time, not bitter._

 

“But I have seen the error of my ways.” He does not trust me, and he does not like me, though perhaps with less viciousness than some. At least he does not see only Verger gold when he looks at me. Even if he sees little more than a monster. “And I am truly sorry for what I did to Mason.”

My lips thin as I say the words, hands in my pockets to hide the clench of my fingers. An exercise in indignity, these small admissions, yet less than it might be, the alternative.

But what is more endearing than a little orphan boy who simply lost his way?

“I hope the healers will see him much improved.”  

A breath.

“But as I trust you will see, I was both provoked and suffering from a panic when the magic overtook me. I had neither control nor desire to hurt him. It might have been anybody, it might have been myself. I could not have stopped it if I wished.”

Jack grunts and it sounds suspiciously like, _We’ll see._

_The laughter takes me and then it takes him and we are clutching at each other, mirth in our eyes and tears, tears and tears and tears, tears of insanity, pain, and laughter all mixed into one, tears of longing._

_Then, sobering..._

_“You would never see your father again.” I whisper hoarsely, wiping the moisture away. Rolling up to drag my thumb along his cheek to do the same for him and he shudders beneath my touch. “Nor your Grandmother.” He’s quiet, beneath me. “Not Bev or Alana, you would give up magic,” The disbelief touches me again. “You could not fly again. Everything Will, everything we have.”_

_“Not you.”_

_The fierceness burns._

_“I would still have you.”_

 

I sit calmly. I sit calmly and open my mind. It does not take the first few attempts, like the healer asking you to relax your muscles when you know only pain is too come. And he growls.

“Hannibal, if you don’t let me in, I am going to assume you weren’t serious about this.”

And we try again.

In the end it is more like he takes a running start and bursts into my mind, a cry from my lips, twisting in the chair, and we are racing through, flipping the pages, past days of endless prowling, past long lonely nights in the garden air trying to find breath, past painting, and reading, past my fingers flying on keys, Bev flits in and out, and I am in the hospital, the fever rages through me, catatonic, crying out for her, and then, further.

Will has pinned me, the jab of needle in my memories, threading in and out, another consciousness tied to them now, Will has pinned me and the buttons are on the floor and our minds meet in a clash.

_Flash_

The magic is strong and I am walking, the parts of me warring with each other, roaring to completion and I am remembering. Everything, I am remembering. It lives in me, a savage life. My body contorts.

_Flash_

I am lost in my head, we are walking as though on fast forward and I can see the Great Hall but it is a blur, I do not look at Jack. I let the memories wash, remind myself I am outside them now. Ignore the snow and the screams as they surround me again, but they call to me, draw in with magnetic pull.

_We are going to eat her._

They laugh.

Their laughter is loud.

Two got away.

Something is pulling, now with a lurch, not from me. Curiosity an anchor in the chaos.

_We’re two death eaters short._

An unspool of bodies that have frozen that match my own but come from a different moment in time.

I see myself crying, blood-soaked, half dead. A new piece, to my memories, to Will’s. Not yet seen, Jack’s.

I look at Jack and he looks at me.

 

_“I’m not enough.” I cannot believe I say the words, but I do. “You know that I am not. And if we ran—” I shake my head. “If we left. They would not forgive us, none of them. It would not be just our hearts.”_

_I think of Bev in my arms, or am I in hers, it is impossible to tell._

_I think of Lady Murasaki, who has already lost my uncle, who is lonely and homesick. Who showed me gentleness though she saw my savagery._

_And Will who sees the same and offers me love._

_And Will who wishes for nothing more than to introduce me to his grandmother, to have me say hello to his father. Who loves them both, who loves our friends, who loves and loves and loves, sees the darkness in everyone and fights._

_But had the misfortune to love me the most._

_In another world I would have expected it of him, this sacrifice, without even asking. But in this one, I close my eyes._

_“No.”_

_I whisper it._

_“No, we’ll stay.”_

_No. I will fight for this. This life I was not meant to have that I have created. It is mine, and I hold to what I have earned._

Mason casts the unforgivables, brings the echos of the past, and the magic is dark as it leaves me. Another piercing pain and we are cast out of my thoughts, the destructive moment little more than a pearlescent strand of light, bottled and tagged.

“Hannibal,” Jack begins, but thinks better of it when I tilt my empty gaze to him. I do not wish to discuss this with him, I do not wish to know how he already knew or what will be done with it. I have done as was asked, I have given up the memory. The fugue, the unforgivables, the agony and the insanity. I will apologize and I will behave.

The rest is out of my hands.

 

_“You don’t have to do this.” Will murmurs, though something like relief paints his voice._

_I curve myself down into him and shake my head._

_I do. I do not want to have to look over our shoulders for the rest of our lives together. I want him to have his friends, his family.... And...And I want to have them too._

_“I want to.”_

I tiptoe into the bedroom, letting my clothes slip off my body and slip back into bed. I curve around him, small, bare. Vulnerable, as I most detest being. But his arms close around me, pull me in, and I let him overwhelm me.

Allow him to, for the first time since god knows when, hold me afloat and let myself loose in his grasp.

H.L.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Will**

* * *

Before we spoke, I could tell that he’d done something. In the cold light of morning, as he slipped back under the covers, his skin sliding against mine as he reached for warmth, there was something different. A vulnerability, a quiet openness that was completely unlike him. I didn’t ask where he’d gone, silently and in the hours before dawn, but when I pressed my cheek to his forehead, my walls fallen to rubble, I knew that he’d done it to protect us.

_Thank you._

A whisper in the dark, fingers carding through his hair.

In the days that followed, things have been better. We are still clinging, facing the unknown, but at least now we’re facing it together.

My lessons with Jack have continued; we’re mostly back to occlumency, which is a kindness on his part but also, I can’t help but feel, an act of guilt. He’s watching me more carefully for cracks. I want to laugh and tell him that the time for concern was four months or so ago, but I’m also glad for the reprieve, so I don’t say anything. Just go through the exercises as instructed, and look at some old case files; photos, the occasional artifact. This part I like. There’s a part of me that gets a rush from the feeling of power that accompanies seeing what others might not, a rush from becoming, briefly, what I am not, without the fear of slipping too far.

Yesterday, when I entered his office, he was silent. On his desk, immaculate as always, there was only one thin, banded file, and without any real logic, the image made my blood swirl cold.

“Have a seat, Will.”

I took it warily. We were in the same place we always are, doing the same cautious dance, but I felt a shift in tempo when I looked at the umber colored paper.

I knew, suddenly, what I would see, at the same time I knew where Hannibal had gone that cold morning. I swallowed, gathered my thoughts close to myself and locked them.

“Go on,” Jack said, gesturing to the file. “Tell me what you see.”

My shaking hands likely gave me away, but I did as he asked, sifted through the reports, the photos. I was steeled to the image of viscera painting the snow, already prepared, but one stopped my breath in my chest; the image of a child, his cheeks gaunt, shuddering under a blanket. His eyes never left the ground, but I knew what he saw behind them; a small hand reaching. He would never stop hearing her cry. I thought of Hannibal as I’d left him this morning, the features the same but changed, saw him through the steam from my coffee. Thought of the way his arms seize, sometimes, in the night, the terrified clutch of his mind.

“I see old wounds,” I told Jack wearily, pushing the papers back towards him. A sick weight tugged at my stomach. He was silent a moment, chewing his lip.

“Do you know what I see?”

I didn’t really care, but he went on anyways.

“I see a young man with a history of violence.”

A strangled noise of protest left me before I could help it,

“Jack, you can’t be serious.”

He folded his big hands in front of him, leaned forward in his seat, and raised his brows.

“He eviscerated these men, didn’t he?”

“They were fucking _Death Eaters_ , Jack! They—” the words stuck in my throat, fury pounding behind my eyes, and I realized I’d walked right into his trap. All the careful guarding of my mind, but I couldn’t stop my mouth from giving me away. He settled, pleased.

“Mason Verger is not a Death Eater. And Hannibal Lecter is no longer a child. I want you to step back and look at this like you would any other crime scene, and I want you to tell me what conclusions you would draw if it was not your friend we were discussing.”

“I would tell you that Mason Verger got what was coming to him.” I hissed. Jack’s brow was stormy.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Fine,” I spat, crossing my arms, “but don’t pretend you didn’t see what happened; Mason was _torturing_ that girl. And I can guarantee that wasn’t the first time.”

I remembered Christmas Eve, wandering the halls and accidentally empathizing, remembered Jack’s hand shaking me from the echo of Margot’s pain. Then, he’d looked only curious. But now, as I glared, some slackness came into his posture, a slump.

“Will,” he sighed, “I’m not going to deny that the Verger boy is dangerous. Had Hannibal come to a teacher with what he saw, we wouldn’t be having this discussion; Mason would be expelled. But he didn’t. He _destroyed_ him. And now, I have to make a case for him, because if he goes down…”

“We all do,” I finished.

It was satisfying, in a way. Jack wasn’t pretending to care what happened to Hannibal, but if Hannibal was convicted, many other things would be called into scrutiny, such as why a fifth year student was in such a mind state that he slid over that edge in the first place. Jack has a fondness for bending the rules where I’m concerned, and I realized that this is what worried him. The uncovering of risks taken and boundaries breached. I didn’t like it, but I respected him for being honest.

And I know that he will do whatever it takes to ensure that Hannibal comes out on the right side of all this. I just hope it’s enough.


	11. Chapter 11

**Will** | _Interlude_

* * *

_The day before the trial, the air thins, and I can’t seem to keep it in my lungs. There’s a barely contained panic, despite knowing that Jack will do his best, despite believing that nobody can look at the memory Hannibal gave up and think that he was in the wrong, that he was malicious, there is a current of fear that twists my insides into something not my own._

_Through this panic, I smile at Hannibal in the morning, pleasant as I can possibly be, and ask what he wants to do. Unspoken, the words hang there nonetheless;_ since this could be our last day.

_He smiles back, and there is, for the first time since we came here, no touch of mania there, only soft consideration. When I fall, he seems to have already stood, braced to catch me. Ironic, that he is the brave one today._

_He chews, looks out the window at the deceptive sunshine._

_“I would like to cook.”_

_And so we do. It’s an all day event, he pulls off recipes I’ve never seen, and the two of us move through the steady rhythm of pots clanking, steam pooling, the chop of the knife against the board. He looks at home, here, moves with a grace that I envy. We do not talk about tomorrow, or anything after, only about today, this moment;_ turn that down to a simmer _. I am not an artist as he is, my cuts are clumsy, but he directs me patiently and slowly. It comes together, and we…_

_My eyes sting over the cutting block, onions sliced paper-thin as he asked. He laughs,_

_“Is it so terrible to be in a real kitchen?” but swipes my cheeks with a cold cloth until the tears stop. He is very close; I can see the pulse flutter in his neck and I reach out, brush my fingertips over it, and he is absolutely still._

_“Will you be okay?” I ask, softly, not believing the words come out, “if…”_

_His eyes are dark. I have broken the spell._

_But he sighs, quietly, takes my hand and squeezes._

_“I suppose I will have to be. If the time comes.”_

_It isn’t really an answer, but I suppose I didn’t really ask the question. He returns to the stove, peers into one of the pots bubbling pleasantly, and nods._

_It’s the best meal I’ve ever eaten, but I don’t taste a single bite of it. The clink of silverware sounds oddly like ticking and I watch his hands instead of his eyes._

_We don’t fall asleep, but lay together in some deep blue in-between space where minutes drag by in slow trickles of agony; the world still, my head on his chest, my ear pressed to the steady thrum of his heartbeat. I feel numb, I feel like like my own might stop. His words echo in my ears, until the gentle roar of the hours passing gives way to the soft knock on the door signalling morning, and I am afraid the time has come._

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Will**

* * *

 

I remember the day of the trial with startling clarity, in contrast to everything that followed.

 

There are shadows under Hannibal’s eyes in the weak morning light. I pull the covers over our heads, close the outside world away so it’s only me, him, and the pale world of sheets. He smiles gently, touches my cheek, trying, as I am, to save this space for a few more moments.

“It’s not too late,” I whisper against his neck, the smell of his skin, soft and clean. I never want to move from here, I am afraid of which way the pendulum will fall, and so again I offer, half-heartedly, the alternative.

But he’s made up his mind. And the smile that he offers is tired, heavy with the decision. What will he be like, the next time I see him? I wind the clock forward in my mind, see him smiling next to me under the evening sun, breathing the autumn air. I see him take my hand between us and lead me back into this house.

The image unspools like smoke under a breeze, and I see him again, looking over his shoulder as they take him away. Bind his hands and take him right in front of me, his last, desperate look what I’ll have to hold onto in the long days ahead.

How long could he go without being bitter about the years taken from us, without giving in to the walls closing in?

But it won’t—it can’t happen like that. I gather as much of him as I can in my arms, feel his breath and warmth and heartbeat. He is afraid, beneath the veneer of composure, it fills him, and in turn me. I want to cover my ears and scream. I press my lips to his forehead instead.

Eventually, Lady M’s soft knock on the door stirs him to action, he pulls gently free of my arms and starts to dress. I watch the silk and cottons slip over his skin, up the smooth planes of his back, the curve of his spine disappearing beneath whites and grays. The formal, somber clothes suit him more than they have a right to; more than they will me, for certain. But as I drag myself from the warmth of his sheets, reach for the clothes I laid out, he stops my hand.

Unease sinks heavy in my gut.

“What is it?”

His jaw is set, in that firm certainty, the familiar commanding lift to his chin. I hear a low roaring in my ears; the sound of the tide roiling around shards of earth.

“Will,” he says—softly, cautiously. I pull my hand back, shake my head.

_Don’t_.

“I would rather you stay here.”

My knees feel strangely incapable of supporting me.

_Don’t ask this._

I want to tell him no, lick my lips and form the word.

“Why?” croaks out instead. He sighs, almost imperceptibly, and his fingers flex; he wants to reach for me again.

“You should be involved as little as possible. Jack agrees, there—”

“Jack?” I huff bitterly, a disbelieving curve to my lips, “since when do we take Jack’s advice?”

He silences the rest of my protests with a look, holds me still beneath sharp eyes.

“I would not have you see me, like that. Dancing for them. I want you here, when I return.”

“Like hell—”

“Beyond that,” he goes on, and there’s something unutterably fragile in his voice, the grind of shattered glass, “should things go… badly, I would rather this be how we last see each other.”

The roar has all but built over his words, drowning them out, drowning me. I say his name, and it is barely sound.

“Here,” he says, takes a step, “where there yet remains life and meaning. Hope.”

There is nothing hopeful in the way his eyes plead.

“Not there, in the stone and shadows, for Mason to see. I would not give him my pain, and I will not give him our goodbye. He has taken enough.”

The truth that neither of us have dared utter, that I’ve avoided facing. That there is more than one possibility, more than one way today will go, and one of them ends with us having to span years without the brush of hands, the warm exchanges of look. He throws it at me and it cuts. I want him to stop this. I want him to take it back. Instead, he takes my face in gentle hands, kisses me slowly. It tastes like tears, and I don’t know if they’re mine or his.

“Please,” he murmurs against my lips, and all of the command is gone. There’s desperation rough in the syllable.

_Don’t ask this of me_

I nod, take a shaky breath. I don’t trust myself to speak, my throat is tight and the air barely seems to reach my lungs. He smiles, relieved, kisses me again, and I hate it because when he pulls me tight to him, it feels like a goodbye.


	13. Chapter 13

**Hannibal**

* * *

Journal,

I try not to think of him as I turn toward flame, glistening powder in my hands, though I feel his presence behind me, loud and drawing. All of me, so much of me, wishes in a panic to agree to the offer he made in the cover of darkness, again, not hours ago, in the gentle embrace of dawn. To turn and grasp out for him blindly, for what more do I need, but him? And to have… one more moment,  one more touch, one more—to disappear and have all of them for the rest of time, it tempts.

But it is much too late for that.

I kissed him, journal. In the weary morning hours, in the grate of sleeplessness, amidst the things I ask from him selfishly, that he does not deny me, our lips had touched, soft, softer perhaps than they had ever before, the still ebbing vulnerability in me, the desperation in him, together, only softness. I had not thought to have softness in my life, I had not thought to be soft. I have said these things before. But they remain true in their incredible unreality. I kissed him, I took him into my arms, and I love him. So incredibly, more than I had imagined possible, I love him. And the detaching that has already begun, the carefully unseaming of every thread that is to come, it drags raw inside of me. Inside the soft parts, that cannot withstand the pain.

I try not to think of him. But I envision him behind me all the same, as I step towards the grate, too small a step, a half step where I could have taken a whole one and been gone. Envision him in his awful sweatpants, in an oversized shirt which I fear to be mine, rumpled from lack of sleep, exhausted by worry, by fear, by heartbreak. My own clenches, that treacherous organ that has chosen to beat only to await slaughter. Tears threaten again, to rise. Bare feet, I think. His feet must be bare. It seems to me the most important detail in the world, but there are too many of them, too many most importants. Too many to build a perfect Will in mind, when he only exists in a constant state of imperfection. Will I recall the fashion in which the unruly bend of his curls is worst in the mornings? The fit of his body against mine? The gentleness which is for no one else?

“Hannibal—” The word is thin in the air, too much a whisper, my Aunt has already gone, has left us to this and he whispers to me.

I do not turn to look. I do not glance back for a one last time, for one more touch, for one more moment. I do not think I can. I step forward to loose the powder and watch it drift and turn the flame unnatural colors. I say the words and am gone. I do not to turn to look, I try not think of him, I try not to be soft any longer.

I regret it immediately.

Inside of me, a version of me rages at my whole, shreds rooms and topples bookcases, _heartless_ , he snarls, _you left him_.

But I have no choice.

_Monster. You did this._ I allow the stone build up inside of me, allow the ice to coat the walls, treacherous and slippery, the words muffle, the vision muffles. It is easier this way.

If all goes well, it will only be a short time, I remind, a small pace of loneliness compared to the alternative. Still, I knew he would loathe it. In truth, I loathe it too now that I have clear understanding of the alternative. But there is no choice here. There is only survival. I have always survived.

I try not to think of him, silhouetted in the quiet morning light.

The fire rushes around me, carries me away, whirls and twists me, the physical rush distraction for a moment, until I rise.

My Aunt is not there. I am young, but old enough. Jack is there and I despise him, in this moment there is nothing I do not despise. But him, more than anything. For agreeing with me that Will should not join us. For validating my desires and making them real. It is all my fault, I know, but it is good in this moment, to hate Jack. I nod at him stiffly and he appraises me, eyes dark.

“You’ll want to remove that expression.” He says in that casual way of his and I do not so much as blink, though it might feel satisfying to snarl.

In truth I do not know why he is waiting for me. He is not my counsel, he is my judge and jury.

“Is there something that you require for me?” The words come out easily despite myself, it is always easy to bring for the guise of ease when they would love nothing more than to see me on my knees. “Some form you might have forgotten? Some _crucial_ piece of information that you had to attend to it personally? I’m honored, Jack.” I let the name drawl from my lips. Where the despair ends, the temptation to draw blood begins. I do not have to be civil to him. He knows who I am. More thoroughly than anyone else but Will. And I. I know who he is. And so we stand together and see each for who we truly are.

I wonder if he would be glad for my imprisonment, if it would remove me from Will’s life.

I wonder, in a fit of thought I do not mean, in a bitter snap, if with time, Will would listen. I do not believe that. I should apologize to him when—

When, if. I laugh a humorless laugh again to myself without explanation and wait.

“There’s been a little change.” The smoothness of Jack’s tone does not sit well with me, wavers uneasy. “If you’re so inclined, of course. But whatever your thick head tells you.” The crass words remain in the even tone. He is impressive, at moments. “You should consider it before you decline.” He pauses.

“You should consider Will.”

This time, I do snarl. The anger grows and I tamp it down, freeze it,  because to have the glass cases of old law books shatter, would not I think, do me good.

“I always think of Will.”

He spares me a glance to indicate he does not believe that, but I do not need him to. The unease in me grows, somewhere, from very far away, I sense a jolt of panic, a cry of pain. It ebbs loudly in me and vanishes. But I am trying not to think of him. So I do not follow it back to its source, do not wish to know of his distress at my absence, at what he believes will occur. I cannot, would not, remove it entirely, but it is muted below all else, it seeps though, as he always does, twists the muscles of my spine and tenses them.

“Mr. Verger is here, in my office. He has given a statement that he understands you were in distress at the time of your actions. That you believed that you were witnessing a gross injustice play out and reacted accordingly. He would like very much to forgo a trial. But requires first—”

The derisive snort that bubbles out of me goes ignored.

“—for the two of you to have a conversation.” His eyes narrow at me again. “I suggest that whatever your feelings for him are, you don’t ignore this opportunity. Apologize, if you’re capable, and we might be able to put this whole mess behind us.”

The disquiet ratchets in me, agitation from nowhere, fingers clenching and unclenching. Something fails to be right here. I know that. I know that. I loathe Mason and he, I know, he deserved every aspect of the fate he received. I do not wish to be accommodating, I do not wish to speak to him, to _apologize_. The word cloys even in my mind. To beg his forgiveness for him in the hopes my performance is enough.

But I think of Will. As I told Jack I do, as I promised myself I would not. I think of him and the soft parts that are stabbed through with ice, and the relief that could be, if I could turn on my heel and return home, free, the last warm days of fall for us waiting still, our fingers twined, peace in that together, and I wish for it. So much I wish for it. I cannot afford to do simply what I want to, I cannot afford to push and dissect to see where this situation will take me.

I am being offered a way back to him.

That is all that I know.

I gave my memories for the hope of that, the most intimate parts of me, surely I can swallow down my disgust, my reflexive visceral distaste, give humility for a moment in exchange for permanently erasing him from my existence and returning to Will.

I think, surely, I can manage that.

I hate the hope the rises in me in simultaneous chords with the knowledge that twists my gut, that something is wrong. That this will end only poorly. I know it is not right, this is too easy, a simple way out now? After all that agony? After all Mason has ensured that I endure?

But I am desperate, you see? I cannot... I have no choice. How could I explain to him I might have had but a conversation and I forwent it for a trial? For a prolonged agony and an uncertain fate.

I nod and we walk, every step heavier inside of me. A trap awaits me here, a gate ready to fall, an axe in suspension, but I cannot cease walking into it, aware but blind. Keen knowledge that little is as it should be even as I am trapped by what I want most, forced forward.

The monstrosity is there, though, much to my disappointment, improved since last I saw him, when we enter. His smile is large and piggish, contorting the scars that twist through him now—brief pleasure, that the healers could not quite put all right, but I remind myself why I am here, _contrite_ , I remind myself, _Will_ , I remind myself—but his eyes are cold. Our gaze meets and I know whatever it appears, this will not be simple. But there is no path out but through here, and I refuse to run from him.

“Hello Hannibal.” He exhales in a chortle. “So nice to see you’ve accepted my offer.”

I look at him and say nothing. He laughs again and his chair wheels forward, body brushing mine as he addresses Jack.

“The good men and women of the Wizengamot have been _gracious_ enough to honor my request that we do this with privacy.” An oily politeness plays mockery over his breath. “And Professor Crawford, of course. He knows you’ll be moved to bravado with an audience.” A pause, and then soft. “And you _fine_ gentleman will understand that I wish to do this at my private residence.”

I focus on my count of breaths, focus on keeping the expression on my features neutral.

“I tire _so_ easily these days.” He winks a sly wink at me behind Jack, and the marks of ravage deepen along his cheeks. I tilt my head at him, impassive.

Jack turns a wary eye, as though he is leaving the choice to me.

“But, of course,” silk in my voice. There is tremor of adrenaline being plucked—not fear, I do not fear him, but a readying for something, the note hit again and again, my whole body shakes. I wish in this moment, for my wand, wish it had not been taken from me.

Jack goes to get the floo and we stand in silence, Mason moves himself closer to me and I look down at him.

“Make sure not to dawdle.” He hums out, immensely pleased by something I know I will not enjoy.

“We wouldn’t want to keep your loved ones waiting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahaha, forgot about that cliffhanger. Well. We'll be back on Saturday, not to worry. A little trivia about this; these last two entries were, I believe, the first ones we wrote after season three began, and then the rest of Year Six unfurled over the course of the summer. If you pay attention, you can find little traces of certain episodes because of this.


	14. Chapter 14

**Will**

* * *

There’s a hand on my cheek; fingers careful, hesitant, tilting my head up. I groan at the pain that spreads there.

“Hannibal…”

A sharp intake of breath and I try to lean into the touch, despite the throbbing ache in my head, squint bleary eyes at the face in front of me and _God, everything hurts._

“No,” a voice says, and it’s low but feminine. Something is tight, uncomfortable around my chest, my waist, my neck. “What are you doing here?”

She comes into focus slowly, in swimming shapes and color, first her wide, darkly-lined eyes and then a pursed mouth.

“Margot?” I manage around a tongue that feels too thick. I remember how I last saw her, tears spreading dark lines down her face in an alley. Now she looks thin, pale, but otherwise whole. _Better than her brother_ , I think darkly, and something about my thoughts feels untethered, wild. I can’t quite pull them together into coherency, and I think it might have something to do with the pounding in my head—

“Did Mason bring you here?” she asks, a trembling urgency in her voice. Her hand finds my cheek again and I cry out, turn away from it and screw my eyes shut, will it away until I can make sense of all this and most of all I just want to sleep, “Will, hey—stay with me—is Mason here, now?”

I lick my lips and taste the red, iron tang of blood.

“I…”

_I broke an end table. The one in the library, a pretty antique thing that I took in my hands and threw when nothing made time pass faster. I watched it smash against the wall, brittle, and it was satisfying until I imagined your disapproving eyes._

_But you left me here, I argue at the emptiness. It says nothing back, and it does not make me feel any better, any more useful in this pile of splinters I’ve made._

“I don’t…” I shut my eyes against the glow of daylight that seeps through small windows in cement walls. It doesn’t make sense, I don’t know where here is, and I need to find Hannibal, I need to—

_The sting of cool autumn against my cheeks, the salt tracks giving way to the cracking of the wind. It feels good, to watch the ground fall away, watch trees turn to twigs as I tilt my broom skyward. I’m not going anywhere, just running cowardly from the thought of Hannibal, one slight figure before a crowd of judging eyes._

There’s footsteps on the floorboards above our heads—a basement then, logic dictates dimly through the fog. The smell of floo is like firecrackers in the air, and then there are voices, muffled and far away. Margot’s eyes are very wide, her mouth thins.

_The cold comes first, and it’s my mistake to think that it’s only me, the frost is internal, because next comes a flash of light, a shouted curse and I’m falling…_

“I’m sorry,” Margot mouths, and her terror washes over me, jolts me to awareness.

“Wait—Margot!” I hiss, but she’s already turned away, disappeared, “Margot please, don’t—”

Behind me, I hear the groaning of old hinges, and then silence.

“Shit,” I say, slumping in my bonds. And then a laugh, weak and manic, that sets my head pounding again. Unreality creeps over me, senses fogging, this can’t really be happening.

The footsteps are closer now, just above my head, and plaster dust and bits of wood sprinkle down into my hair. One of the voices is strangely soft, unfamiliar. Another high, nasally. _Mason_ , I think sickly, and throw myself uselessly against the cords that bind me to the support beam at my back.

_The trial_ , I remember, and panic draws my breath tight, _why is Mason here, he should be_ —

And then, the low rumble of syllables made round with accent. I can’t make out the words, but a dry, relieved sob tears itself from my throat; _Hannibal_. I sag against my bonds, lean my aching head back against rough wood. If he’s here, he was not found guilty. Another laugh, this one more real and less afraid, and I let my mind drift into the pleasant vagueness that’s tugging me so insistently, listen to the low murmur of his voice, a tether somewhere above me.

_I’m falling, and there’s screaming in my head, and I know somewhere deep that I will never see Hannibal again, even as the ground draws near and a shadow looms over me. It doesn’t hurt as much as it should when I crash to the forest floor, there is no comforting blackness, but it knocks the breath out of me and I roll onto my side gasping through the haze of pain. There’s only pine needles and loam, and then a hand that fists itself into my hair, yanks me back as I struggle to draw air in._

_“It’s him?” the man asks, someone I’ve never seen. His lips are fleshy and pink and I hate him. I don’t hear the answer, just see his lips stretch into a smile. When his fist cracks against my face, I find the darkness I’d expected._

The wrongness of the situation is slow to set in, but once it does it’s whip-quick and sharp. Hannibal should not be here. _I_ should not be here, and if I know Mason, this can only be very, very bad. I heave at the cords around me again, succeed only in drawing painful lines into my flesh. I groan, loud and frustrated, and I realize coldly that I am not getting out of here. Fear clenches, but my thoughts race.

I am not getting out of here, but maybe Hannibal still can.

“Hannibal!” I shout, with all the air left in my lungs, a warning like he once gave me, in a hallway years ago. My throat is hoarse and dry, and the cry sends me coughing but I try again. And again, and again. The voices never falter, as though they don’t hear me at all, and I realize belatedly, stupidly, that they probably can’t. There’s probably all manner of spells around this room.

One pair of shoes stops directly above me, and there’s an odd lull in the conversation. Impossibly, I find calm.

Then a door opens.


	15. Chapter 15

**Hannibal**

* * *

A wand to my back as soon as we surface, we walk, and it’s good that we’ve forgone pretense that this is just a conversation. The two of us, Mason and I, but there are more of them in the shadows. Men who lust for blood for blood’s sake. I can smell their despicable enjoyment of such animalistic pursuits without needing to see the hunger on their faces. But most of all it emanates from Mason. Hunger and glee. I raise my chin to his good spirits, remain impassive as he moves around me—chair discarded, now that there’s no audience from whom to cull favor—and prods me forward. He does not frighten me.

I walk as I am ordered to, another grating laugh, because I do not know the situation yet, I have no understanding of the variables at play. I allowed myself into this trap unknowing, and now I have no choice but to continue it along the path presented, until I can find one of my own. And there will be one, I am certain. He cannot have thought of everything, and then... then I will be free. I will see to it then, with absolute certainty this time, that he is incapable of spreading any more of his bile.

But the door opens.

And he is there, and he is _hurt_ , and Mason smiles, steps up next to me, a companionable arm slung around my shoulder—words, sounds, but they distort as the sight registers and I confess, I forget to think.

In an instant I have sprung myself at him, my hands for his throat, it would be nothing to twist the life from him here, it occurs to me, the consequences vanishing in the sudden rage. That he dared. That he dared to touch Will and bring him here. To tie his arms and draw blood. That he dared to do that, my nails scrape, fingers curling, choking. It is as satisfying as obliterating his face, I wish for a knife, to slit his sorry throat and then the rest of him, straight down, open him, let the blood seep out and leave without a backwards glance. He howls and writhes beneath me.

He _hurt_ him.

I only need to leverage myself properly and I will be able to—

And then— then the truth returns to punish me for my momentary lack of control, in the form of an iron grip and arm snaking beneath mine, heaving me off of Mason and ratcheting me up, my own going too far in a direction it is not meant to be, I do not gasp or cry out though it hurts, fight only to slow my breaths, which come ragged and fast.

Fingers wrench into my hair, pull it back so my eyes water as the arms that pin turn me round. Will chokes a sound which screams through me. Not bad pain, but he seems to be absorbing it in full, too attached to me, but I cannot sever the connection now for fear it will push his brain too far. He does not seem to understand exactly what is occurring, but knows enough to know, on his own instinct, there is danger for us both.

I struggle against them, wild again, though I do not allow my brain to cloud, as another approaches him from where he’s bound, attempting to conquer the spill of his thoughts, of everyone's. It’s his eyes that haunt me as I watch, wild eyes, _I hate you_ , he’s whispering, at no one at everyone, maybe even only in the reaching flow of his thoughts, as they flood, wash along my own, perhaps along all the minds in the room. _I hate you_. But they are my words, my presence pushing him, and I wish to beg him to to stay inside himself, as I attempt to mute my own emotions to make it easier for that wish to be true. A fist slams into his cheek, more blood seeping from his forehead, joining the long cut already there. His body shoves back against the wall, but only the thud echoes. Mason's face curves displeased and another hit rattles him, unfocused eyes staring up the ceiling and finally again through his clenched lips, sounds escape.

Concussed then, I understand suddenly as his confusion touches me again, confusion of the mind to add to the anxious press of stress and too many people present, empathy running amok atop all of it. His voices escalates up and down the spectrums of its range - first thin and high, a broken noise and then the low cadence of a snarl before it dies all at once as he struggles to catch it, to reign it back and in. An attempt to retreat farther away, into the reaches of his mind, but he cannot quite untangle all of himself from the room. The blood drains from me quickly, I want to go to him, I _need_ to go to him. My body is limp in an attempt to loosen the hold and then it springs into action, but they are bigger than me, there are more of them, but I need to. I need to get to him, tear them away. The man ignores us, twists rough hands into the collar of his shirt and sends the hard first into his cheek again.

“Mason,” it breaks free of my throat, strangled. He is watching me, the scratches I left over his scars painting his skin and teeth a red haze. “Mason, enough.”

He tilts his head at me, the smile widening and the blow falls a countless time.

“He does look _a bit_ worse for wear.” The sing song of his tone stirs the anger in me. “And our dear friends will be calling soon. We wouldn’t want them to see him in this state. What _will_ they say about my hosting?”

I kick uselessly back one last time and then force my muscles to stay against their will. It is foolish to waste energy, to increase the pain I am in, when pain to come is so clearly promised. The crash of skin on skin again and Will is shuddering, ends of sounds as they half swallow into him, half escape despite us both. _I hate you_. He’s muttering again - low now, as though trying to control the volume, if he cannot control the speech. I want to close my eyes and block it out, but in me it shrieks - the luxury for that was never present.

“You do not need him.”

I say it calmly, look for honey though it is far too late for that. Too late from the moment I razed his face to the ground and he decided he would have his own revenge. Too late from his interest in us both and his delight at pulling wings off of creatures. Hideous.

“He did not harm you. He has no proper recollection of this, release him.” From the corner of my eye, I see the fist raising, Will is more blood than face, head bowed beneath soaked curls, a stream of it from his mouth, a lost smile on his lips.

I steel myself for the blow to come.

Mason holds his hands up in the direction of Will and then waves an arm in mine, theatric, no sign of the pale weakness he dressed in for Jack.

I will give him real weakness to wear before this over.

My captors release me, allow my arm to settle properly, my body to find a comfortable position again. I could spring at him now, if I tried, could be done with the deed before he could blink. I wish in this moment, as he walks towards me and I stiffen, but do not move, the man before Will ready to drop another angry blow, layer bruises upon bruises, that I had done it properly to begin with.

He stops before me, raises a hand to touch my cheek; a teasing caress, as one would lay on a wild creature to show that he is tamed. He is delighted by this turn of events, _I_ have delighted him. He was not entirely clever enough to have planned it all on his own, but he had a dim hope of what would happen and I have pleased him. The fingers drop along my cheek as I stare straight out into the room, allow the touch, the paces of humiliation. But he has chosen to take his game outside the boundaries of law, I shift my eyes to him, for only a heartbeat, darken the full intent of my gaze in them, and in that instant, the bravado leaves him, his fingertips leave me, and I can taste his fear.

But then he takes stock of the men in the room, tilts his head pointedly to gaze at Will and turns back to me with a smile.

“On the contrary.” His arm pulls back, winds up and slams into my face as he backhands me with a swift practiced hand, sears red against my cheek and angles my head to the side with the force of the blow. “You have just demonstrated most generously—” He pauses until I have lifted my face straight again, high again, I do not hide the mark he has left from him, as though I am ashamed to have been so easily hurt. I do not acknowledge it at all. “How much I need him exactly.” Will is dressed in my ache behind us.

_—it hurts. Don't._

“Perhaps if you’d been dull enough to let me massacre that pretty, pretty, face of his,” his fingers are up again, following the outline of his blow throbbing into my skin. My fingers clench but I do not move, “I’d have let him leave with an ice-pack. Eye for an eye. But now—” He presses into it.

“You want so much to be bad, Mr. Lecter. But we want you to be good, don’t we?”

He trails his fingers into my hair, amused at my stillness, proud that his petty little mind was capable of such a feat. Not for long. He will not have it for long, I promise him silently as he yanks, the clashing chaos of Will's thoughts, by turns, furious, terrified, pressing into my brain.

“You should go to him.” The suggestion comes with all the kindness of fine cheese in a mousetrap. But in the same fashion that brought me here to begin with, how can I not? Refusal, I sense, ends only with more pain neither of us can withstand presently.

“Tell him it’s all going to be just fine.”

I thin my lips and attempt to ignore them as I cross the room, do not let the rage at the blood that coats him show, or that wrenching agony that fills me, to think I have brought this down on him in some way. I have hurt him enough on my own, I do not need proxies to aid in that regard.

“Will.” I murmur as I sink to my knees beside him, wipe them all away with invisible walls I build in my mind. My fingers come up carefully to twine through his matted curls and he turns eyes to me - fights the losing battle against dizziness, enough I think to see me.

“We will be fine.” I tell him quietly, as he calms in my presence, but does not move - only watches with a slightly better rhythm of breaths. They are cutting his skin raw around the wrists, I note with another flash of hot anger, but that garners poor reaction. Will's gaze alights suddenly with the same rage and I do my best to steady myself.

“Don't—” I urge him, wipe away some of the blood with my sleeve, a small smile at the thought that he would be horrified if he knew I had done so. _But your shirt_ — he smiles at me tentatively, his mind catching my shifts. And it is possible I am speaking more to myself. “Don’t worry, okay?” And I mean it, my other hand settling firm on his thigh, knowing how the touch grounds him. He nods wordlessly, barely more than a raise of his chin, foggy comprehension, and I wish to take him from here, to see him home and my words true.

“Hannibal.” Mason’s voice comes from far away, stretches my name into a tone I don’t like.

I ignore it.

“ _Hannibal_ —” A pause and then, with a bit of a whine, “It’s not polite to ignore your name.”

“Yes?” I hiss without looking at him.

“He’s too quiet now, it’s dull.”

At this I whirl around, he’s grinning and I could launch myself at him.

“Make him fun again, won’t you?” A roar is growing behind my eyes and I recognize it, the dim sound of screaming, the scent of flesh melting. But I cannot afford to lose my rationality, especially with Will like this. I cannot afford to lose myself, I cannot afford to wager on hurting him as well. But _oh_ , it calls to me.

“Or I guess, Cordell could, again—if you wanted. He’s got those excellent metal things, what do you call them Cordell?”

“Brass knuckles.” The slippery voice comes.

“Brass knuckles!” Mason exclaims, bright. “That muggle torture, rather ingenious. They deserve absolute commendation for learning to hurt each other without magic. Do you think,” The question is leveled back at me, “they could shatter his cheeks?”

“I will not.” I tell him levelly, pretend I do not hear his comments. Will is watching distant again as I draw away, too much effort to keep his comprehension for too long, struggling breath through a bloodied nose. Mason's gaze is on me.

“Won’t you?”

And the truth is...

The terrible truth is that I do, I allow my hand to fist, allow it to press into the already damaged cheek, impassive, at least no emotion, while he’s confused agony, and betrayed pain, daggers inside of him, as he pulls finally, inside himself at that. I’ve hurt him. He doesn’t look at me when I sink down next to him. I cannot explain to him in this moment that there was no choice. But there was always a choice, and all of this, in truth, I have caused. If only I had had better control on that day, if only I had simply killed him, if only, if only, if only.

Will is bleeding and _I_ have drawn that blood, and a vicious part of me, the curious, alien, other that grows, always grows, wishes to do it again, to feel once more the expansion of force from my body to his, the cries that came after, that I drew. Mason, I think, knows enough about such enjoyment to see that in me, and it is that which pleases him most. _Monster_.

 _I hate you_ , Will murmurs only to me, and I hate me too.

“I’m afraid I’ll have other guests to entertain, very shortly.” I don’t take my eyes from Will, I don’t stop watching the irregular breaths that fill his lungs, contort his lips, in agony, in shades of detached desire. Mostly in desire to bring them to an end, but a mistrust of my own fingers.  "But don’t miss me too much.”

And he’s gone and we are alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget, we're posting Tuesday this week instead of Thursday!


	16. Chapter 16

**Will**

* * *

Time passes in strange leaps and drags. I am aware of not always being aware, spaces of minutes slide from my grip and I have no idea how much, if I am losing consciousness, or if I just don’t remember. My mouth feels like cotton, tastes like blood, and my face feels like one swollen ache.

Hannibal reaches for me, for the cords that dig welts into my skin. 

He tries to untie them, once, but as I could have told him already, if my mouth and mind were currently on speaking terms, there  _ is _ no knot. An image of them writhing and coiling from a wand flutters through my mind, and I don’t know if it’s memory or make believe, or maybe an image not my own.

Hannibal curses, and it sounds strange on his tongue. I don’t like the way that desperation shapes the syllable, now that we are alone.

“Will, you can’t sleep. I know it is tempting, but I need you to try and stay awake with me.” A pause. “Please.” 

His hand is gentle under my chin and I snort, say something that sounds, to my ears, like  _ Yes, Doctor _ . He’s looking at me, but not, his eyes scanning my face, close to me. I watch his lips instead of the eyes that won’t meet mine. There’s a red, raised flush of soon-to-be bruise across his cheek, and my breath stops. Did Mason do that? My hands try to reach, to soothe, and they can’t. I make a low, frustrated sound in my chest, and he pulls back, a strange caution there.

I remember his fist connecting with my jaw, blooming pain in bright, clashing colors, and I shake it away, discard it for another patchwork memory. Now there’s only us, and he watches me with wounded eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, only it’s probably nothing more than blood bubbling from clumsy, swollen lips. He nods; he is too. It’s easier, now that we’re alone. Not so much hate. Pain, everywhere, but I am an old hand at that now, and at least it’s mostly my own.

I lose another swatch, minutes, hours, I don’t know. I dream, or maybe remember. I think of Hannibal sitting on a bench beneath shimmering lights, alone at a dance, but I can’t picture what color he wore. I know the song that echoes eerily, quietly behind me as my seeking eyes find him, can smell magic and sage in the air, but my brain refuses to fill in that last detail, and it is  _ killing _ me to think I’ve lost that piece of the memory. I drift, distract myself with pine trees and winter wind, with kissing the taste of chocolate from his tongue, remember him small and silent in flannel, and then strong and long-limbed, draped across sheets with my arm as a pillow. Warm, drowsy days by the lake, his laugh.

And then it is the first time. In the dim glow of the potions room, everything is new and fascinating;  _ he  _ is new, a small, solemn figure in pressed robes. I take the seat only because it is empty. He doesn’t adjust his things to make room; they already take up precisely half of the splintery table, and his eyes barely flicker over me before going back to his notes. He has the look of an animal that has known pain, and will not let anyone close enough to remind them.  _ I’m Will _ , I want to say, it’s only polite, and somehow I know these words have huge significance. He is strange, but he is not a stranger, and my chest feels tight watching him, the young, soft shape of his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” I say, instead of introduction, slouched in the creaking seat. “I’m scared we might die here, Hannibal.”

Once the words are out, I realize it for the truth. Somewhere around me, outside of the classroom, or maybe just beneath the veneer of it, Mason’s house still exists. Somewhere, I am not at a desk but bound and bleeding, and I don’t trust that Mason couldn’t get away with making us disappear. 

His quill pauses, and he looks at me, allows the smallest suggestion of a smile. He slides the parchment he’d been scribbling on between us, and I look down,

_ It’s alright. Death is nothing to be afraid of. _

“Will.”

The cluttered pieces of my mind draw close again, though it feels like a puzzle jammed together all wrong.

Hannibal—not the boy who sat at my desk in first year, but the real one—is looking up. The thudding above our heads registers in my mind as footsteps; heavy ones, and two voices confer; the man who gave me the shattered, swollen feeling in my face and—

“Jack,” I breathe, and Hannibal nods.

“He can’t hear us down here,” he says, half question, and I shake my head as much as I’m able, wince at the ache even that subtle motion causes.

“Mason has wards up,” I rasp, pain just in speaking too, wounds stretched after too long spent still. I think angrily of how quickly they could set, if I only had my wand.

“Can he hear  _ you? _ ” Hannibal adds. I know what he’s asking, and though I’m tired, drained, my mind stretched beyond what it should ever be, I lick my lips, close my eyes and try.

There are no boundaries, the edges of where I end in tatters, and I sigh as I feel Hannibal’s familiar presence wrap warm through me. His anger is bitter, and just beneath, he is afraid, near panic. But just as I can no longer feel the throb of hate from Mason or his guard, Jack is unreachable, only a voice in the dark.

I slump, head reeling.

“I’m sorry, I can’t.”

Something icy snaps in Hannibal, and it floods me with rage so fast I gasp, my muscles pulling tight. He growls wordlessly, he’s pacing the edges of the room, trying to press for a weakness in the wards, throwing himself at the door.

“Hannibal—” I try. It scares me to see him like this, when he is usually my river, my calm. I want to placate him, but the words stop in my mouth as I realize there’s nothing I can say. I ride the tide of his anger in shuddering silence until it’s spent itself, and he’s gained composure, if not quite peace.

He sits heavily beside me, breath still ragged, and I try to lean against his shoulder.

“At least you’re not in prison,” I mumble, the faintest curve of a smile. It’s not funny, and Hannibal doesn’t laugh, only gives the barest sharp hints of smile. He does, however, put his hand against mine where it’s bound, the warmth of his fingers squeezing once and staying.

“He will make a mistake,” he declares tonelessly. I agree; Mason is reckless. He will get caught up in his own games and that’s the only way we will get out of this place.

I swallow thickly, my mouth is filling with blood again.  _ But will we be in a position to take advantage when he does? _

I hear the echoing of a front door opening, the murmur of voices, closing, then silence. Steps again. It seems we don’t have long to plan.

“Should it—” Hannibal pauses, laughs now, humorlessly, “I suppose it’s safe to say  _ when _ —it becomes difficult to bear, I am going to shut the doors between us. So that he can’t hurt both of us at once.”

I want to argue, want to tell him that Mason  _ is  _ hurting both of us as long as he’s touching Hannibal, empathy or no, that I don’t know if I can stand silence from him, now, of all times. But that’s a lot of words for my aching lips, and we may not have much time. 

“I love you,” I whisper instead. I want to see his face, but I can’t turn my head enough.

“No goodbyes yet, Will,” he says quietly. But he squeezes my hand again, and I know.

And then, we wait.


	17. Chapter 17

**Hannibal**

* * *

Journal.

I am not really writing, you are not really here. But if you were, I would write, and so I do.

Everything slows as we sit, passes in unclear increments. At points I am sure hours have gone by, great gouts of it poured down the drain as somewhere a clock ticks, and at others, I fancy we are still entirely. Motionless as we are, trapped in this grey and empty room, no sound to break the silence but the muffled breaths Will takes, our scattered conversation that ebbs and flows with his moods. He looks up at me now and again, cheerful grin, murmuring eerily through bruise and blood about an assignment as though we were about to step into a classroom. And then a haze comes over, silent darkness as he loses himself to an unseeing fog. The shock of the first moments at least seems to have abated into something more of himself. And there are rare instants of cogency now, where I slide nearer to him and he grips tightly at my pinky as best as his bound hands will allow. 

I fear his mind is unravelling, in truth. The stress of what was, what is, what will be crushed against the blows to the head, the jumble of his brain. In this chaos a door has been unlocked and it may never be put right again. Not if we remain here. There is a trickle of … something, there, that calls to me, that whispers of power, but it is too faint, too bedraggled by everything else for me to fully understand it, for it to be of any use at all. Will is not in full control of his mind anymore, instead it controls him. And what controls him, holds me in its grasp as well. Even if I somehow found a break in the walls, a moment to overtake or overwhelm, I could not trust the fact that he would be ready. His own words whispering in my ear.  _ Could we take it?  _ Yes. I attempt to think fiercely, yes, always. But in truth I do not know. 

_ Sleep.  _ He murmurs, low into himself. And then. 

“Not yet.” Quiet whisper, a longing to reach for him, to anchor myself in his presence— 

_Ice, fear, memory of pain_ _they cause._ When they come near. _You hurt me,_ I hear, but the voice is my own.

I withdraw. 

His blood is dry on my hands, coats the knuckles, seeps in and in, darkens and dusts, but stays. Stains. There is no way to wash it from me. I have earned it, after all. I deserve its unyielding kiss. Idly I wonder if there will always be moments when I look down and see it, if I will awake soon to find that all of me is drenched in it. I had given dangerous inches in the face of what must be done. But what will it be next that I have no choice but to undertake, and how long before I forget I did not wish to experience it at all? The thought hollows me, takes my breath.

At that he comes instead to me, reading my anguish more fully than even I can, with my determined walls, my inability to allow proper fear, in his fort-less thoughts it rings loud and I rest a careful hand on his cheek, more blood coloring me, thumb slow across it, all forgiven as his eyes flutter low but do not close. 

_ Stay with me.  _

His mouth smiles, barely.

_ Where else would I go?  _

In truth, journal, I am exhausted. One sleepless night after one sleepless summer, and now we are here and I must stand guard so he does not drift away into silent stillness and leave me on my own. He is so pale now, beautiful, his dark hair against the scarlet of blood, china skin, but teetering on some invisible precipice. Silently, I will him to push, to find the right side of it, the side of power and not breaking. But it is beyond me to reach him. He must reach himself.

At some point the lights dim and then flicker out, a claustrophobic wrench to my senses, which hone directly on the life in him, dimming as well, the scent of him beneath iron tang, the sound of his uneven breaths, the murmur of his heart somewhere beneath. 

“Can’t sleep.” He murmurs the refrain back to me, his body shuffling and I find his touch in the dimness. 

“No.” I agree, his thin pressure on my skin, my own fingers clutching back, try to keep my eyes from trying and trying to see when they cannot, my paranoia from overwhelming with every prick of sound across the air. I do not enjoy being so handicapped, that I cannot see the approach of my enemies, that I cannot properly orient myself to them, and the exhaustion in me makes the rend worse. 

“M’tired.” It comes in a brittle exhale of sounds. I inhale, gather myself.

“In a little while.” Thin offerings. “You can sleep.”

“In a bed?” His laugh is caught between hysterics and delusion, no humor for either of us without the dryness it might have come with at another time.

“In a bed.” I promise. Vow it will be so and shift closer, close my eyes to the absence of sight and whisper stories to pass the time. Tales of fire, and myth, and rage. 

We make it through another sleepless night. 


	18. Chapter 18

**Hannibal**

* * *

Journal.

The lights turn on.

Food appears at some indeterminate point, water, I raise the fruit to Will’s lips though he can barely open them, force my fingers between his teeth so that he can swallow. I am not hungry, anxiousness taking away that particular urge. I resent that, the way my stomach knots itself, refuses even the thought of anything filling it, and leaves me with the faint nausea that hunger brings. I am. I am starving. But I cannot eat. I pull myself away from that sensation and press wet fingers again against Will’s mouth to distract from the paths it takes me. The all too clear now rend of snow, of aching sides and a fevered cough.

_She is hungry and I am hungry. I have nothing to quell her pain._

“You have to eat.” I insist, my other hand closing just a bit too tightly on his wrist. “Will, you have to.”

He moves back at that, pulls lips off my fingers and lets exhausted eyes slide closed, brows drawn. My tension pushes him backwards, frustration low in my stomach.

_You’re falling apart._

“I am sorry.” It brushes out more like a snap and nothing more comes. The door opening just as I move to apologize again, shameful regret coating me instantly. He is hurting as I am, and I am not helping.

“Good morning!” The exclamation is too loud, reverberates in the cell after hours of only our hushed murmurs. His big lumbering fool is behind him, wand at ready, ugly smile, and it is all I can do in this very moment to stay on the floor. Ignore him as he moves closer, hands reaching out already, coming near when the last thing I could wish for is touch, and then turning to grasp onto Will with two palms, shaking his head.

I hiss.

“And how are you feeling today? Better? Peachy? You look a little out of it still. Maybe we knocked you around a little. Too. Much.” No sounds this time at this jostling, the makings of a glare instead, but I cannot help the wince as I envision the dusting of his cells, grinding finer and finer with every moment here.

“ _Has Hannibal not been taking care good care of you_?”

His cooing manages to dig its way straight into my nerves and then it presses there with a bruising thumb. I do not look at him, I do not acknowledge him, sit silently and wait. Breathe relief as Mason lets go and comes to bend over me instead, hand out once more to trace over the bruise that stretches purpling now, I am certain, across the right half of my face.

“And you?” There’s something darker there as he strokes it, pleased with the picture it makes. His own mark, I know, serves for fascination, the lesson he ground into me with it, taught us both. That I would allow him, as long as he has Will. The invisible triumphant leash he has set across my neck. A dangerous lesson to allow a spoiled wretch to learn.  “Can you feel it? Does it hurt? Oh, I hope it hurts, please don’t tell me it doesn’t, I would be _so_ upset.”

Fingers beneath my chin to tilt it up to face him, a raise of brow.

“It throbs.” I grit out, fill air into my lungs and release it instead of yanking myself away from him. “Thank you for your concern.”

His lip curls at that and he sets his thumb across it in agonizingly slow movements, leaning in closer, his face into the space around me, his breath across my skin. My muscles burn to push him off, to force him back, in and out, I remind myself, inhale, three seconds, exhale, maintain the rhythm, I know I am capable, but he cloys into my attempts at organized calm, and between the way sudden sensation plays against my cells, made hypersensitive by the time in darkness, and the lowering of my patience from lack of sleep, it is hard to ignore the discomfort.

“Go away.” Will’s filterless mind voices my wants as they become too loud to suppress, breaks the temporary silence we’ve managed. “I can’t breathe. You’re too loud. Go away.”

The other looks from him to me and grins, pushes his touch into every last inch of the bruises, twisting and pressing, heightened ache. “You should find a muzzle for him.” He laughs and pulls me standing. “Or he’ll give away everything under that tough guy act. And I wouldn’t want him to spoil the surprise.”

His words whisper against my neck.

“I want to unravel you all by myself.”

I wish him good luck with that endeavor silently to myself, in a rather unpleasant tone, and he laughs.

Then I’m left standing in the middle of the room, Will’s gaze on me from in front of me, loose and untethered, Mason’s on me from behind, directed and eager.

He leaves me there with only gazes,  but I do not bend to unease. Do not ask him what I am waiting for, or what exactly he finds so fascinating about watching me linger, still in the middle of the room. Some little part somewhere does not enjoy what it perceives as being put on a sort of display. To be watched by unyielding eyes with my back turned, a performance not of my choosing. And I do not like, it is true, to be forced to turn my back to the enemy, vulnerable. But on the whole, any moment where I may conserve myself in his presence, instead of losing some aspect of me is a moment that goes towards escape. He could be sending a deluge of spells across my body, could use his hired muscle to break my bones. Instead he merely watches me. Unnerving perhaps, to degrees, but withstandable. Especially for me.

I wonder idly what he is looking for.

Minutes pass.

Finally, because Mason is not one for patience and it surprises me that he could even have stood quiet for so long, he breaks the silence and orders.

“Your shirt is all bloody, Hannibal.” I despise still the way his mouth drags around my name, ungracious petulance wrapping along it. “I don’t _like_ my pets to be dirty.” I hear his smirk without needing to turn. “You should probably take it off.”

I consider protest, weigh compliance against argument, and do not bother at this juncture.

Instead say,

“Do you hope I’ll melt by the power of your stare alone? I do not think you are capable of that.”

_As I am._

He responds with what can only be termed by a guffaw, and doesn’t rise to the bait.

“Take it off, Hannibal.”

One button and then another, I use the time to consider what the point of this is. Undressing. I suppose it could be some sort of power tactic, a humiliation? But I am not humiliated. It is not as though my shirt would protect from a knife, nor from a blow. It is fabric and it is already largely ruined. Perhaps a younger version of myself would have found the notion appalling, but I have comfort in my skin, largely. He takes little from me by taking my shirt. But, I, I suppose, had better not to tell him that.

“Just let it fall.”

I comply and it flutters from my shoulders.

Were it not for the apprehension that reflects in Will’s eyes as he watches me, I might have laughed.

“Good.” Mason’s voice is lower, thoughtful, but his intentions remain murky to me. I await the next thing as his presence moves closer again, another slap, a punch, the whisper of magic.

But nothing comes, and more nothing, and then—

Fingers stroke slow up the line of my spine and the softness of the touch is so unexpected and so strangely intimate that I gasp away from it before I can steady myself. Whirl around to look at him, forcing the confusion away from my face.

“Now, now.”

He’s reaching again, one to my cheek, one trailing down the curve of my side. My body seems to understand what his intentions are, in the implicit primal way certain touches register, drawing memories of touches like it that are not as it by any margin.

“Don’t play coy.” A thumb padding across my lip, pushing past it only a little as nails dig into the space around my hip. “I’ve seen you with him, in the nooks of the library; not so private those nooks, in those empty classrooms, that one _delicious_ night in the Gryffindor common room.” His laughs arch mad and I am still catching up to conclusions in my mind, too slow. I should know, but it is such a far fetched impossible thought, that—

His lips slam against mine and for one moment I am still, and for another I am kissing back—a play of the reaction to the touch, but in another still I am growling and pushing him away. Another slap comes searing across my cheeks. All I can think of in that stunned moment of realization is the kiss that Will and I shared two mornings ago, too soft to exist in this place, but being called to mind by the press of lips against me, only to have a viscous darkness poured around it, a distinct slime which burrows into me, though I do not quite understand what I am feeling, and leaves me with distaste. My distaste for Mason infecting the memory, infecting the action. So long to understand the finer points of touch, and in a moment, my dislike of them comes roaring back.

He wrenches his fingers into my hair and pulls me nearer again. Will’s mind roars vicious against mine, his voice growls behind me—no words forthcoming, but there’s a darkness to it that brushes against me; a distant, brewing storm. A primal, possessive anguish that twists deep and threads danger in his thoughts, in him, his breath coming in harsh, uneven pulls as he loses the fight to remain stoic.

Mason doesn’t seem to notice.

“Really, Hannibal?” His fingers ease slow through the hair he was just pulling, pet me like an animal, I turn my gaze from it, the whole of me harsh breaths, snarling, muscles knitting and tensing, but I am motionless. “Is that your final answer?”

_You’ve promised to keep him safe, haven’t you?_ His grin leers. And it’s in Mason’s voice and mine the thought sounds. _So easy to bend you into place._

I say nothing, between pants, allow quiet serenity through me in overwhelming quantities, summoning it up to flood through with the last resources of energy that are in me. Force ease into myself and direct it, wait until Will has eased behind me, until his breath is even to my counts, and he is still.

And then, in one swift motion, slam stone between our connection. Shut him out and cut him off. I will not let him feel this, I will not allow him to see what I am about to do, what Mason sees. He is not a burden, but he pins me, in this moment. And in this moment, for him, there are things I must do that I would not have him feel. The sudden cold quiet of his loss muffles the entire space to me, emptiness, silence making palpable the shock. I can feel from far away a dim sort of accusation, before that too has faded. As though it is any easier for me to lose him. My comfort as well as his.

" _Hannibal_."

He’s looking at me now, I know, horrified, the tremble of disbelief and fear in his voice.

Icy fingers clench against me, the knots tightening, the hollow anguish higher. I want to go to him, I want to let him in again, to be open for him, perfect for him.

But I do not turn to acknowledge him.

_"_ Hannibal, _no_."

I can do nothing for him but this.

I straighten myself, head up to meet Mason’s gaze, twist my lips into something like a smile and press in closer, following patterns of body language that are not my own, not while I have control. Perhaps that were mine in a distant dream of drink and despair, when I was desperate for release and touch on my body, when I awoke covered in marks I wished to scrub off me, that spoke of my lack of control, my lack of volition. But I replay them now by choice, of sorts, use them, our last card to play, play along for now. I tilt my head and bare my neck, shift closer to him.

“No.”

I lean in and kiss him, deepen it with my tongue—flesh and touch and nothing more—run my lips against his own.

“That would be rude.”

The aim clear at last.

Submission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELP.   
> Happy Holidays everyone. Please don't kill your authors for leaving you here, we will return on Saturday, I promise XD
> 
> (Also, did AO3 update recently? Because fucking bless, it preserved the italics this time. Although it suddenly did not want to insert that line in the header... hrm.)


	19. Chapter 19

**Will**

* * *

The quidditch pitch is perfect today. I think idly about flying, but for now I am content to lay in the grass, feel the stir of fall wind in my hair, the glow of sun warm on my eyelids. 

Beside me, Hannibal’s quill scratches across parchment.

“You know, you have to do it at some point,” he chides fondly. My propensity for procrastination is well known to him, but I draw my brows in, not sure what it is I’ve put off. It’s not like me to forget, though avoidance is a cup I drink deeply from.

Beneath the scents of grass and leaves and Hannibal, the dry breeze smells faintly of mildew.

I shake the shiver that works through me, roll so I am laying with my head on his cross-legged lap and smile up at him. The essay he’d been composing is set aside, with only the slightest of mournful glances, his mouth pressing to a line of concentration as he folds it carefully, stows it in his bag. My hand reaches up, rests easily on his thigh, and he curls fingers lightly in my hair.

The wind through the stands sounds eerily like crying.

“What if I don’t?” I ask, teasing. There’s a slow churn of nervousness in my stomach, and I don’t know what it’s building from but maybe if I refuse to acknowledge it we can continue with the day as it was. Perfect.

The smile that Hannibal saves for me is soft, just a crinkling of his eyes and the barest shift of lips. I crane up, back arching just enough to lift me from the grass, and he humors me, our mouths pressing warmly before his pulls into a defeated grin,

“What am I going to do with you?”

I blink, momentarily confused by the sudden change of scenery, the gray walls that surround, the strange doubling of voices. Not Hannibal’s then, that murmured those words, higher. Not a fond rebuke but a cruel musing;  _ What  _ am _ I going to do with you _ ?

Mason. Despair bubbles up in me, pushes deep, anger a dull chord somewhere beneath, because there’s  _ touch _ , there’s bruising hands, and I can see but I can’t feel Hannibal. And I can see that Mason is pressing him to the wall behind him, is yanking his hair, and that Hannibal—a small, broken noise tears free of my throat—Hannibal is  _ letting _ him, is parting his lips to Mason’s searching tongue, allowing a soft moan even, when Mason grinds lewdly against him.

_ Stop please stop don’t please stop it please don’t touch him don’t— _

I don’t know which of them I’m begging, don’t even know if I’m saying the words out loud, but maybe I’m loud enough in Mason’s head, because he pauses, turns to look at me, his lips flushed and wet.

Hannibal does not. Hannibal looks only at the ground. I try desperately to reach him again, fling out searching, panicked tendrils of thought and find nothing but blankness. It is as though he is not even there.

The terrified, fevered thought flickers that maybe he isn’t, maybe this is just one more layer of delusion and Hannibal is already gone, the living, breathing spaces where he existed ended by Mason, and this shadow of him here only a creation of my mind.

Refusing to meet my eyes.

“Please,” I gasp, and there’s little hope in the sound. Mason crouches before me, the smile twisting through his scars touched with something else, languid and self-assured.

“What’s the matter?”

_ I can’t feel him, I can’t feel him and he’s nowhere but he’s here and you’re touching him and I want I want I want. I want my hands wrapped around your throat. I want to watch the life leave you. _

I say nothing. There’s nothing I can say to Mason, he's going to do what he wants, and the least I can do is—in this moment where I am really  _ here _ —not give him more ideas than I already have.

He tuts, affects a sympathetic expression that does not look at home on his features,

“Oh, I know, I  _ know.  _ It’s hard to share.” 

His voice is mocking, and his hand is quick to find my cheek, the contact jarring and settling a new, splinter-sharp layer to the aches already there. I try to stop the cry before it comes but, exhausted, only succeed in making it hitch in my chest. Mason smiles, delighted, and stands, turns back to Hannibal. 

_ NononononoNoNONO— _

“I just  _ love _ those noises, don’t you? Is he always like that?”

Hannibal is silent, looking at Mason only with a mask of polite blankness. I want to close my eyes, go back to the quidditch pitch, I don’t want to see this. They are only inches from each other.

“Does he make noises like that, when you fuck him?” Mason asks, voice quieter than his usual shout, but the words flinch through Hannibal, straighten his muscles with dislike, a small crack in his armor. I hope against hope that Mason didn't see, though guiltily, I have to confess that I’m happy for it. Some flicker of the real Hannibal, even if it’s pain. I try reaching out again, find nothing but Mason, a buzzing distraction.

“Or is it the other way around?” Mason adds, punctuates with a hand that trails from Hannibal’s throat down his bared chest, lower, “I wonder what noises we can get out of  _ you. _ ”

And for a terrible second, my still grasping mind is Mason, he fills me and I’m looking through his eyes at Hannibal. Hannibal who is terrible and crackling beautiful anger behind his blank gaze, and I  _ want  _ him, I want him not heavy-limbed and pleased, lips searching for mine, hands desperate for me, but stoic, bared, forced to his knees. I want to wield my power over him until there’s no pride left in the tilt of his chin. I want him broken.

I tear myself free, head spinning, bile rising in my throat. The walls shimmer strangely around me, and Mason crows a surprised, nearly ecstatic sound.

“ _ What _ was  _ that _ ?” he laughs, looks from me to Hannibal, then back. I have never hated empathy more than I do now. I’m starting to slip away, trying to hold onto this moment of clarity but fighting a losing battle. Thoughts drift by, sluggish, messy.  _ I wish this would end. _

“You truly have a gift,” he says, watching me with narrowed eyes. I like his expression less and less, can hear the slow grind of gears. For a moment I lose track, the world growing dark and strange, but only a moment, I force myself to focus.

“...given me a lot to consider. And you’ve been so well-behaved and all, I might just reward you.”

He pats Hannibal’s cheek with a parody of affection. 

“Cordell?” he calls sharply, and the man resurfaces from the next room. I don’t believe for a second he wasn’t watching all of this. “Go ahead and undo Mr. Graham here. He looks a little peaky.”

And then he’s leaving, disappearing through a door. Leaving us here with only each other. The cords slide free from my limbs, the grooves they leave red and raw in my skin. I sigh, pleased for a second, before my mind remembers that I am still trapped, just by different bonds now.

When the door closes, I don’t go to Hannibal. He makes no move for me. He slides to the ground cautiously, draws his knees up and does not look at me. And I—I am fighting a losing battle with consciousness. In my head, he is already pulling me close to him with sleepy limbs, and this is just a nightmare that I have yet to wake from.


	20. Chapter 20

**Hannibal**

* * *

Journal,

I sit and say nothing, think nothing, am nothing. Perhaps if I am nothing enough, I will fade from here and lose the press of ache and exhaustion that cloys me. Will slides into uneasy sleep and I allow it, enough time from injury passed, but in frustrated bursts sends his mind pressing against the wall I have built. In my own, I sit on the other side of it, head bent against smooth stone, taste him raging and  _ long _ . But I do not relent and do not lower it, reinforce instead, push him farther out, even as he rebels.

I ache for him.

My weakness. The achilles heel that ties me to this place, that keeps me bound, figuratively and not. I hate the thought, I resent myself for thinking it. But it is true, I cannot risk him as I would myself, cannot retaliate with the threat of his pain suspended over me. I love him too much for that. In dangerous ways, in ways that endear Mason and pull him closer to dissect our relationship. So dull, we would both be, if I could care less. But I do, and so he drags fingers down my neck. I shudder despite myself at the ghosting echo of memory, and drags teeth along my throat. The phantom play of his fingers scrambling my hair turns my stomach. My _ allowance _ of it. Turns my stomach. 

And it is not  _ for  _ Will, but it is because of him. And that is not how I think of him. I understand myself to be better with him than without, understand myself to be halved if he were to be gone. But I have allowed myself to find this point and now it betrays me. My love for him betrays me. And even so. 

I ache for him. 

I should attempt to continue searching for weaknesses in the wards, though I know that to be fruitless, I should attempt to rise and see what is in the rest of the rooms now flung open to us. But I am exhausted, nauseous and weak. Not. Vulnerable. Not feverish, my muscles spasming, my stomach plunged into icy chill. Not in shock. Only exhaustion, malnourishment, the stale air of this prison that leadens my limbs. So I sit instead, my knees into my chest, my arms crossed around them bringing them closer without my realization, and watch him. Trace the way his breaths rise and fall from his chest, the way his eyelashes curl onto his cheeks. Move my gaze along the edges of his jaw, alongside the slight stubble which he is so proud of. Memorize him again, always, for the millionth time, because he is always my favorite topic. In the hollows of his cheek, I forget where we are, in the shadows beneath his eyes, I move out of myself, into somewhere where at least all is quiet, and the sickening taint which draws dark invisible lines across my skin cannot follow. 

I am so lost in the paths of him, that it takes me more than a moment to realize blue eyes are returning my gaze, a little clearer, at the moment, no less tired than before.

They blink at me. 

In a hurry I withdraw, gaze at him for another half a beat of heart, and feel my mouth grow dry. The eyes that had watched on, furious, as Mason had—as I had—

I look at the floor again, my lips thinning. I should apologize, though I know I had only chosen the best course, I should explain at the very least, that it wasn’t worth ire, nor pain, when we have so little strength to spare between us, move my lips to form sound, but sound flees as it always does when the anxie—the exhaustion, becomes too heavy.  So I say nothing instead, the frown curving my lips down and stare at the dirty floor, wish that I could resume the peaceful numbness examining him had left me with. 

Silence. His eyes are on me. 

Then there is a scrape and a groan, the sound of weight shifting and he swears quietly under his breath. I allow my gaze to slowly wander to his feet, which are unsteadily searching for purchase and his legs which wobble beneath him as he stands. 

_ You should not do that.  _

I would tell him, a touch of disapproval coloring my tone, but I only fill my lungs with air and loose it. 

_ You must rest.  _

That one is slightly more demanding and a hint more panicked. He would look at me as though I were overreacting and roll his eyes. 

_ It’s just a scrape, Hannibal. It wasn’t even that hard.  _

But I do not speak and he does not speak. The feet pause, find purchase, another groan that sends unhappy tremors through me, I do not understand what has rendered me so sensitive, and they are moving. Slow, halting, steps, and a stumble or two, they stop. More of him into my line of sight and I look away again, to the side, head tipped down. 

_ Perhaps you should not...  _

_ I do not presently wish… _

He’s sinking down next to me, labored breaths loud, and with a hand that is a shade too soft, that prickles anger through me, because  _ he  _ is the one that is injured, he is the one in pain, I do not need to be gentled, touches my shoulder.

I flare up, but he doesn’t retract and then calm again. 

Wordlessly something dangles into my line of vision, dusty white, wrinkled, stained scarlet. I take my shirt from him with slow fingers, force myself out of the position I collapsed in, though I feel a bit as though I might simply undo if I move, and slide an arm into it and then another, lifting the fabric to cover my skin again, settling it back along my body though it is ruined. Has been bent and tossed, just as I— 

Defiantly I smooth it out, pull it as straight as it can be, and reach for the buttons. One, Will is watching, two, a silent snarl at the thought of lips to my own, three, my fingers are trembling—lack of food, lack of sleep, surely—a fourth, and trembles become shakes, I miss five twice, and six is all but—

Will’s hands are atop mine. Still soft, I stiffen and we pause together. And I could send him away, order him to leave me with the growl that I am fine. Fine. Fine. I am fine. But I do not do that, do not follow what will always be my first instinct, instead loosen myself, drop my hands away at his silent question and allow him to finish them for me. Busy myself instead with tucking it in neatly, as best I can without rising, because journal, the unbearable truth is, I do not think that I could. 

Together we right the fabric on me as best as we can. 

It changes nothing, it changes everything. 

He removes his hands when he is done, but lingers close, waiting. 

I cannot look at him still, only lift my fingers to my hair, determinedly ignoring recollection of how it came to be in its present state of disarray. He shifts beside me, reading me, always, knowing me, with a link or without. I brush it back, fingers through it again and again, attempting to coax it back into straightness. But the gel is long dried and gone, and it has been too badly tangled to set right without a comb. Still I push at it, press it. Until Will’s fingers move again, and capture mine, pull them down so they’re caught between us as he edges closer.

“Hannibal.” The grief in his voice turns my cheek. 

“I’m right here.” I murmur back though words come slow. 

“Are you?” Lost, though he holds me as though I am the fragile one, grips my hand within his own. “I can’t feel you at all.” Slightly far away again, and a part of me despairs. 

“What if you’re already dead?” Reddened eyes and a drawn brow, “What if you’re gone and I’m alone. What if… what if it feels like this forever?” 

His voice drops low. “He should kill me too, then.”

The words freeze my blood.

“You’re not alone, Will.” I turn my thumb to brush along his skin. Shift my cheek another half inch, so that I am looking at his jaw, it trembles as my hands do. And we are both clutches for balance. “I’m right here with you.”

“I feel—” Hollow despair chokes his voice, the hoarse notes of anguish. “alone.” 

In that beating flutter of connection that we always share, minds open or not, we turn our necks together to find the other’s gaze. He raises his free hand and traces the bruise along my cheek, the new welt, the faint lines of teeth that go lower. 

I close my eyes as he trails touch down. A play at reclaiming, but a fool’s game. I am not his yet to take back, I am not even mine. We are both at mercy, more ahead than behind us, I fear. 

“It’s okay.” I murmur. “It does not matter much, one way or the other.”

His touch stills and a faint, rather bitter smile shifts him just a touch more into lucidity. “You can be human, you know.” He comes closer still, presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth, it’s open mouthed and graceless, but it quirks my lips. “I promise I won’t tell.” 

Can I?

I think I’ve afforded enough to it already. 

But I say nothing, his eyes are shutting again, head draped against my shoulder, limbs leaden. In the last moments before sleep takes him, I chisel the slightest of cracks in the stone I’ve set between us. Sleepy eyes opening momentarily and then shutting again with a touch more peace. 

“Sleep.” He slurs his order to me and disappears. 

But I do not. The glow of contentment fades with his presence, and I am determined to remain awake. The thought of allowing unconsciousness to take me suddenly too repulsive to consider. I will not be caught unaware, I will not lay as an easy target. I refuse. 

Though my body angrily tells me I require it. That I am running myself towards collapse. I cannot allow it.

I cannot let go.

I need to be aware.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fucking Mason. What a truly hateful character, and what a gift to a writer. He's to blame for everything in these segments, including the next one, as he made his intentions very violently clear every time one of us sat down to write. But I also got to enjoy the little call-backs to previous entries as Will slipped in and out of his mind, especially since I was starting the daunting task of editing those early years for posting at the time that we were writing this. 
> 
> Happy holidays, everyone. I hope Christmas dinner wasn't too haunted by the last entry (that's a lie, I can't even say that with a straight face, I kind of hope that's all you could think about). We will be posting on Tuesday once again this week, as Thursday is another holiday (when do they end???).
> 
> A small aside: If I am not mistaken, today marks the anniversary of the first time I met Ro in person. We travelled to Vegas last winter break as part of a small group of fannibals, and since she was coming from NY we had to take my car to pick her up at the airport. We were already co-conspirators, though at the time we were working on a very silly but very fun venture that some of you may know as Mind Palace, and this universe had not even been dreamed of. We had an amazing trip, ate hella good food, drank a little (a lot), and rang in the new year together under the lights of the Fremont street experience. I've often made the very obvious joke that not everyone can say there were _literally_ fireworks when they kissed for the first time.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading and commenting. You all are seeing a story that has been a long time in the making, and though I've said it before, I'll say it again: it means so much to me that you love it like we do. Please return to your enjoyment of the holidays, and good luck not thinking about this last scene while talking to your aunts and uncles ;P


	21. Chapter 21

**Will**

* * *

Our voices are pitched low as the light from the small, high windows creeps across the floor, then disappears altogether. Hannibal slides in and out of an uneasy sleep, only restless minutes at a time, and I worry that in not allowing himself this weakness now, he will only make the future more difficult. 

But I’m far from a point where I could argue this, only in a state of half-being myself, the whole world a swirl of pain and weariness, sound, the color of a bruise, and the rhythmic pounding in my head. I’m just relieved to think that he’s here, for the time being at least. He’s here, beside me, breathing in slow, shallow sounds that echo the sharp pain in my chest when I inhale too deeply, which means either he is alive or we are both dead. Either way, we are together alone. Scolding him into sleep would be useless, as would searching the boundaries of our prison again, and because I can’t think of what else to give him, I give him my voice. In the dark of our third night here, we talk about nothing and everything.

“If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?”

A silly question, drawn up from the fever dark of my mind, meant to distract from the dismal room, our uncertain future. At any time, Mason could come back, but I can’t think about that without my breath drawing shallow again, so I don’t. I ask silly questions. 

Hannibal’s mouth twitches, and though I still can’t feel him, I can read him well enough to guess it’s some quirk of dark humor. He doesn’t share. He thinks, and I watch the rise and fall of his chest with reverence.

“Frittata,” he says at last, a small groan as he shifts back to sit more comfortably, “made with sweetbreads and red peppers. A plate of almonds and Spanish olives, fresh basil garnish,” here, he smiles hollowly, a small breath that might pass for a laugh, “Dark chocolate macaroons from Honeyduke’s.”

I make a silent promise to get him some at the next possible chance. 

His voice rolls with familiar rhythm, though it’s low and hoarse, dragged raw with the days of unease. I press bruised lips to his shoulder, close my eyes on the thought of how I saw him through Mason’s eyes.

“What would you have? Dare I ask?”

His eyes are rimmed with red, a thundercloud bruise darkens his cheek, but he’s looking at me with an expression that’s as familiar as a well-worn photograph. A fond recognition of flaw. It’s just enough to draw a smile from me, despite the aches that don’t end, the strange tightness that drying blood has left me with, and I play into his hand without having to lie,

“Fish fry.”

His wince is almost comical. He’s enjoying this reprieve too, is thankful that I don’t reprimand and remind him what we may still have to face come morning.

“...like my dad makes, and fat, seasoned potato wedges. Any kind of pie.”

I lose myself to the thought for a moment, sliding easily into a lesser level of awareness. The smells of batter, of spice and salt and butter, the feeling of pie crust crumbling, melting almost, on my tongue. My stomach clenches painfully against itself; I know we’ve eaten, but I can’t remember what or when last.

“Talk about something else,” I say softly, still lost in the tart taste of cherries. He doesn’t answer right away, and I think I’ve lost him to sleep again, sigh my relief prematurely.

“...Do you wish we had done anything differently?”

It’s not exactly the nonsense kind of distraction I want, and my mind refuses it for a moment. I hear the individual words, but not the meaning behind them, it takes me several moments to piece it together. When I do, I snort.

“I’m not sure we  _ could  _ have. We are what we are.”

I force my eyes open, turn them up to him. His head is cocked in some semblance of thought, mild consideration at my—very profound—revelation. Another thought occurs to me.

“I’d’ve gone with you to the dance,” I force through sleepy lips. “I would’ve kissed you,  _ many _ times, taken all those... lost opportunities. Told you how I felt, in plain words. Never left you in that hall on your own.”

He’s watching this list of confessions unravel, and I hope despite myself that Mason is not. Even the possibility that he’s privy to something this intimate makes me feel sick.

“I made my own choices,” Hannibal says quietly. It’s long been dealt with, is no longer painful, only a dry reminder, but echoes with something dark, for a second I hear it as  _ make _ , not  _ made. _

“Our choices are never only our own,” I murmur. Then, with a smirk a shade more like my usual, sarcastic, self, “ _ We’re lucky that way _ . Inextricable from each other. Every action affects the other, may as well be the other’s.”

He smiles at that, weariness in the lines of his mouth. 

“Nevertheless, I would not change anything. As you said,”

His fingers, long since stilled from the shaking that scared me so much, find mine and slip easily into the spaces between.

“We are what we are. Perhaps we would not be so in another life, where we had made fewer mistakes.”

I’m grateful for the anchor of our gripped hands, squeeze his lightly,

“Or more,” he adds thoughtfully, and I snort,

“I can’t imagine how we could have made more.”

Our current surroundings aside, we both spare a hushed laughter at the ludicrousy of the thought, one that fades quickly and leaves my chest aching. 

The silence that follows is heavy with our labored breaths, and I feel the world slipping from me, feel myself sinking again into the velvet darkness of sleep. I mumble something, I think, as I fall, something about how he should rest while we have the chance, but then I am gone. No dreams, no memories, I am here and then I am not. Nothing and nowhere. It’s.... relief.

When I wake, the stone a cold and empty ache against my bones, Hannibal is gone.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***HELLO, PLEASE READ BEFORE TRAVERSING ON***
> 
> This chapter contains some heavy dubcon elements. If this is not your thing, please sit this one out, I'll put a note at the beginning of the next chapter with any plot points that are important going forward. You are your own gatekeeper here.

**Hannibal**

* * *

Journal.

“Hanniballlll—” He simpers over me, pausing in his movements and bending himself closer, his bare skin pressing into mine, the fine sheen of sweat that coats us both repellent to me, his breath whispering against me bordering on too much. It is almost enough to break the coat of indifference I have wrapped around myself in, to shatter the silent rhythm of breaths into something that is forming more savage. But it would be foolish, I remind myself, to lose my control, the very thing he wishes most to take from me, over these small encroachments into touch, when he is buried inside of me already, invaded into my body and twisting still deeper. I have maintained through that, certainly these little—my breath whispers too fast as his fingers come dancing down my ribs, knuckles dragging, following the welts of scratches already furrowed, stroke slow along the edges of my back.

“You went away again.” He punctuates the words with subtle movement, with a nudge of his leg to open me farther, drag my hips wider, another hiss of air from my lungs. “I already told you, it’s no.” Breath. “fun.” Breath. “When you go away.” I cannot see him, but his lip curl is such that it would be palpable even to the blind, an overwrought cliche of a motion, and I feel it forming without need to face him. “No one likes a mute, Hannibal. _You_ should know that.”

If he could see my face from where it is bowed I would cast him a rather unimpressed look indeed; I have not been mute for a very long time. But as I am bent over thoroughly, braced against my arms, my hair, now tangled and matted, hiding away my face, I save the energy. Focus it on pretending there is no agony roaring through me, no throb that comes from within and seeps without, meets exhaustion and the rend of spells that still dance beneath my skin, to cut me at the knees.

“Perhaps.” I disguise the desire to twist away, the hollow ache that the rough grind of bruises presses into me, with exasperation, enough layered over the pain to make it almost inaudible. The lowness the only aspect that betrays me, the raw edges that I simply have not the energy to smooth out. “I would be more inclined to make noise if you were better in bed.”   

Not untruth.

Perhaps untruth. The real truth is that I am finding this entirely abhorrent. The touch, the closeness, the inelegant, primal rut of it. Mason is abhorrent, yes. But in this very instant, I’m reminded why I had struggled with touch, with touch of this sort, for so long. It leaves me with little more than the desire to scald myself in the shower and a sour twist in my stomach, blood, sweat, pain, ridged with a distasteful pleasure which comes in its hideous flood though I know I do not feel the least bit pleasured by anything in this situation. Mason’s fingers dragging up to my shoulder, their too thin, too soft texture turning my stomach. And still in treacherous instants, I feel it, my body decided on its own that it enjoys a certain touch, the despicable feeling of lips on my skin. That is where the self possession is lost. That is where he has me.

Breath.

The fingers go higher. Find my hair, turn hard, and yank.

I am stronger than Mason, I am more powerful than Mason, but I am verging on three days without sleep, my brain is functioning in shades too slow, and the food I have consumed is something less than minimal. He drags me suddenly up and my whole body stiffens in reflex, a groan of pleasure for him and gasp that I scramble to muffle, but I know he hears from me as the movement slides him deeper. I am all but on his lap now, my back to his chest, knees on either side of his. Too open, but I on the whole enjoy it better than being on my knees and elbows, formed into something of a bow as though he knew uncannily it would be the position I would least enjoy, spread for him—handicapped by the angle of my body and face, the force of weight on my arms. At least this way, I am upright.  A hand slides up my chest to hold me in place, trails around a bruise for a moment, and then goes to find a nipple, twisting it hard.

“It’s really _too_ bad you’re not enjoying yourself.” His coo is as teasing as ever, but I hear the flat tones of annoyance flitting through it, petulance, quickly fading from mind as he recalls that he has me. That whatever I say it scarcely matters because he can thrust roughly and feel my body tear against him and he wastes no time in doing so. Now that he is curved around me and can see my face, I set my jaw and do not acknowledge the pain. “Because _I_ haven’t had such a good fuck in a very long time.”

I tamp down on the urge to ask him if perhaps it’s because he makes a habit out of having to blackmail people to sleep with him, but I resist. Take instead to actually pressing my teeth into my tongue to focus as far away from him as I can manage. But he’s too close, to resonating, too...infected. Burrowed his way in. I cannot escape it, so instead, I catalogue it.

The overabundance of his cologne makes my eyes water. The gel in his hair crunches against me. The skim of his eyelashes irritating against my over sensitized skin. I focus on this. On the facts, the observations of the occurrence. Not on the notion that no one has ever touched me here but Will, and there are things occurring, places that not even Will has gone, that Will and I have never— not on the consideration of whether I will be able to have touch here, there, again without thinking of this. Without the aversion I am experiencing now. Not trauma, I fear, but conditioning. What if my skin betrays me and remembers this, as it does when Mason’s touch dances soft, in just the wrongright place for a moment?

A hard bite in time with a thrust jars me back again from the weary drift of my thoughts. If he wished me to be awake and aware, he might have arranged for some pillows. Another push and I am arching back against him, twisting up into his arms, one diagonal against my chest now, the other slung across my hip, skimming down towards the abused skin of my inner thigh. He had scraped his teeth hard there, sucked and bitten until he had drawn blood.

Overcompensation.

“So tight.” His hum of appreciation grates. “Either you’re a lying liar about what you and the headcase have gotten up to in all those corners.” Lips brush my cheek, pause in a facsimile of a nuzzle as his grip on me twists.  “Or _he_ is _one_ loose lay right now.”

I do not respond when he talks about Will. He has already tried and failed to wheedle that particular point, but he presses on this time.

“I _suppose_ I could find out if you don’t want to sha—”

He does not however get to finish those words, because I have extricated myself from him, turned and pinned him back against the mattress. Laughter still painting his face. I am naked, I am dirty, and I am tired, but I will tear his heart from his body if he finishes that particular thought.

His eyes flit towards his bedside table where I know is a communication device of sorts, guards outside this room, guards outside where Will is. The smile doesn’t leave his face. And I don’t let him go until I have said the words, calmly and clearly.

“I will kill you.”

Then I relent, release him and pull away, tame and limp once more, waiting. But he shakes his head, pulls himself back against the headboard wordlessly and crooks his finger. I shift closer, don’t allow him the pleasure of commanding me and straddle him again, sink down in one swift movement, as though it does not send piercing rivulets of agony through me. My head tilting back as breath leaves me, and for a moment, the pleasure sparks. I shift away from that, shift for the pain, but he grabs me, pushes me back and thrusts.

I truly wish the moan I make were not mine.

“See Hannibal. You need to relax. Know a joke when you hear one.” He’s rolling his hips up slow as he guides me, presses against me, “I have good and funny plans for what’s inside that body of his, but not like—” The sensation is blazing, so different than the hurt, my body rushes towards it, my brain pulls me back. Focus, focus is important. “This.”

A slap comes, dances heat across my skin, I do not let the image of a handprint forming _there_ get beyond the preliminary stages of thought.

Mason’s cackle sounds from a haze far away as I struggle to maintain order over myself. “See you’re fighting, I like that.” His fingers edge along me, a pause, then a yank and his lips are on mine. “Papa always said, if the pig breaks too easy.” He swallows my lips, pushes his tongue into me, nudging me lower, the blood seeping around the dark desire building. “It’s not much worth having.”

The hands find my thighs, stroke across them, skim along my now slightly interested body. And if I could I would turn my cheek from him, but that would be surrender as well so I raise the walls as high as they can go and hope I manage some approximation of boredom.

Our eyes lock.

“Though they all break eventually.”

Touch up my chest and I wish he would stop, fuck me if he must, but cease with the rest, with the irritating constancy of the press of his cells to mine, with his triumphant possession. Even inhales, I remind myself as he traces every rib. Even.

“But I didn’t bring you here just to chat. And as it turns out, your little brain monster isn’t _entirely_ worthless after all. Funny little accident he had yesterday, don’t you think?”

His fingers prods aggravatingly at my forehead. “Got right in here. I couldn’t even blink for a second there. Krendler always said he was a strange one, mirroring that poor little girl. All that messing around with people’s brains, but seems like our boy can do more than just reflect, can’t he?”

I say nothing. In retaliation he presses me onto my back, fucks in, and it’s back to barely caught screams.

Thankfully.

“So I think, maybe we should see what he can do, don’t you? I’m sure you’ve wondered. But you let him get to you instead of getting to him.” Disappointment rings his tone. “That is a shame, Hannibal. A real shame, because I know that you like that vicious stuff.” His scars are hideous in this light. “I know that. And this could have been so easy. For both of us. We could be fucking together right now, knowing no one could ever stand in our way. But instead.” A deep sigh. “Instead you’re making those really unattractive scrunched faces, and I still can’t control anyone and everyone I’d like to. And I would like that.” Teeth ravage my throat as my legs are pushed up and back. “Truly, I would. So we’re going to play a little game with Will. And if you do your part— you know, those threats of death and torture, they’re probably getting a little old.” He’s moving faster, shifting inside me, building towards, a frenzy as he leans in, lips brushing in deceptive softness behind my ear. “So I’m going to offer you something sweeter. Something you really, really, want, in exchange.”

If he’s willing to step into a sword, I’m listening.

“Don’t get mad now—” Sickeningly sweet, his voice, and he’s gone from the bed for a minute, leaving me slumped, before coming back with a vial I recognize instantly. “But Cordell—” The rage burns inside of me, as I sit up, look at him with wild eyes which turns his smile savage. The memory, _my_ memory, held in his hand. “He has sticky fingers sometimes and a _lot_ of security clearance, thanks to the family name. It was really rude of him to take what wasn’t his, really rude. I’ll have him apologize to you later.”

I am still watching him, wordless.

“But it was for a good cause you know—How many of them were there? One, two, three, six? And two that ran fast enough to avoid being sliced into ribbons. They must have ran pretty fast.” His fingers are on me again, but I can’t feel it, the blood rushing through my body, loud in my ears. “I wish _I’d_ been that fast.” A hiss. “Got a good look at them though, and grandad was more than happy to offer me a little insight on who they are and what they’re up to. Old buddies, you know, from the war. On the side of good and right, of course.”

I am not processing fast enough to understand all of his words, what he offers, _names_ , names and people, bloodlust is high in me, shudders through my skin. Names that I never thought to have. Names of those who killed her, and yet kept their miserable lives.

“And I would love to tell you all about that—but you let those cute little curls twist you into weakness instead of showing him that what he really wanted, was to use that precious brain to get what he wants. What _you_ want.”

He’s hungry too, I can smell it on him with the still functioning part of my brain. But I can’t explode, I can’t destroy him. For Will… for me.

“But there’s something in him and I’m going to help you get it right. And if you’re good. I’ll let you have what you want too.” He touches my back like one would touch an animal, feels the air expanding my chest.

“Share this rage with him, push him towards it. I’ve seen what he can do when he’s full of it, it’s all in here. Almost did this to you himself, all those precious buttons on the floor. And you looked so betrayed.”

The fury ratchets and I let it sear a moment longer before moving to extinguish it. I cannot give this to Will, he is wrong, it would burn through me, burn through him, leave ash and bitter emptiness in his mind. The blind echo of furor, and nothing left of him. No.

No.

I breathe.

No.

Not rage. I cannot give him that, I cannot control that.

But perhaps…

It must be something else, something I’ve perfected the control of. Mason is not wrong, I recognize in this moment as the world whirls around me. Will needs to be pushed, he needs to allow whatever is brewing in his brain to rise and expand, explode out of him, to embrace it. Our only weapon without our wands, without backup or numbers or hope. But not fury, never, not to destroy him, wipe him away with flames he cannot contend with or understand, as he was swept in that terrible moment when he pinned me to the wall. That is not it, not remotely. No, he needs something that will inspire him forward, inspire him to fight, but hold onto himself, the self that I love truly, more than anything. The self that I know is strong enough to direct what’s inside of him without being lost to him. I know that. I _know_ that.

I wager him. In this moment, which I have promised never to do. I wager him. But in truth, if he destroys himself, he will destroy me no less, and better that we push ourselves to dust with our own doings, than wait for Mason to decide how he wants it done. Better that I destroy us than he does. Push into conflagration and hope it is we who still stand when the smoke is cleared. I whisper silent apology to him for making these decisions without him and then blink myself back to the room.

“Blindfold me,” I murmur, letting Mason push me down again, thrusts quickening, breath growing shallower. “Tie me up. It makes sensation whirl and overwhelm, I don’t react well to that.” I gasp as he wraps a hand around me and strokes me with a rough fist. Not fury which comes from that, but that is not for Mason to know. “Neither will he.”

From the gap between us, he grins at me. Smiles because he believes I do this for the names.

I smile back, in a teeth bared groan, as the pleasure sears up in me, painful and ugly, imagine his blood seeping on the floor, his brain scrambled in his head.

I will take the names from him before he remembers nothing else at all.

He should take care which impulses he inflames.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello :)   
> If you've decided to skip the last chapter, here's a brief summary of the conversation that Mason and Hannibal had:
> 
> -Cordell managed to obtain the vial containing Hannibal's memory  
> -Mason has since seen it  
> -He knows the names of the two Death Eaters who escaped, the day that Mischa was killed  
> -He offers Hannibal the names in exchange for Hannibal's cooperation in controlling Will (Mason apparently has some creative ideas about how to use Will's empathy)  
> -Hannibal agrees, but he points Mason in the wrong direction. He hopes not to break Will's mind, as Mason intends, (and as is quite likely) but to free it.
> 
> That's all! Happy reading today :)

**Will**

* * *

 

After hours of silence, the dull glow of daylight melting into dusky orange, the sound of a door opening somewhere above is almost deafening.

“Did you hear that?”

He’s not really beside me, just another spectre called up by my inflamed brain, but he cocks his head, and it’s such a perfect recreation that, for a moment, I am tempted to believe. To believe he’s been beside me this whole time, that I didn’t hear the grate of Mason’s voice mingling with his somewhere in the main house, then painful silence. I feel, as he nods, flicks his eyes meaningfully towards the sound of feet thundering down stairs, that there’s some pressure pounding behind my eyes, a trickling cold that threatens to break. My empathy has been  _ used _ , scraped raw, but it doesn’t dull. It gleams with all the sharpness of a knife, shards of glass tearing at the inside of my skull. And the  _ pressure _ . I close my eyes and I’m standing at the foot of a dam, staring up at the spreading cracks.

Mason’s voice comes, muffled, from the other side of the door I’m leaned against. No real way for me to tell where Hannibal is, but it seems the closest I could get. I pull myself standing, shaky, move away so he won’t slam me with it in his eager way down. Fear has my heart in a tight fist, but only because I don’t hear the answering voice I’d expected. The Hannibal I’ve imagined stands gracefully, smoke and shadow, brushes a hand along my battered cheek, but I shake it off, and he is gone. Disappeared like his flesh and bone counterpart had while I slept.

The door bursts open and Mason practically bounces into the space, scars flushed pink and white twists through his grinning features.

“You look so… well rested!” he exclaims. He’s toweling off damp hair as he speaks, reeks of shampoo and aftershave. I watch him with narrowed eyes that I can’t help but let flicker to the half-open door behind him. My stomach is lead-heavy and sick. Mason’s smile widens.

“Sorry to leave you out of all the fun, but you just looked so  _ cozy _ curled up there. Maybe next time.”

“Where’s Hannibal?” I ask, and my voice is rough but stronger than it’s sounded in days. His face sours, nose wrinkling.

“I swear, that’s all you ever talk about; Hannibal, Hannibal,  _ Hannibal _ .”

There are halting steps on the stair, and my heart stutters.

“Anyway, he’s fine, it’s all fine. I took  _ good _ care of him for you.”

I don’t like the undercurrent in Mason’s voice, the way his barely-concealed excitement winds its way around implication, or the way the footsteps pause for a moment. Mason’s smile returns, and there’s a new, sharp edge to it when he leans in close to me.

“He may be... a  _ little _ sore,” he says in a low, confiding tone. Then, “...but that’s what happens when you sleep on the job; right, Hannibal?”

I’m not sure what exactly I’d been bracing myself for, but not this. As he closes the door behind him, relief loosens my clenched fists, my jaw. Hannibal is whole, seemingly unharmed. Neat even, skin scrubbed and hair combed back. The rumpled, stained shirt he’d worn is gone, replaced by clean—albeit a size too small—clothes.

“As you say,” he answers, devoid of inflection. My relief flickers for a moment at the sound of his voice, clashes with the conclusion that Mason is smearing in my face. The smell of Mason’s soap clings to Hannibal as well.

Mason cackles and snaps at him with the towel. It doesn’t even earn him a flinch.

“I’ll tell you what; he’s a quick study...”

More and more and more cracks.  _ Ownership _ , I realize, that’s what this is all about; the clothes, the shampoo, the—

There is an awful rumble, rage choking, testing the gates as my mind draws up an unwilling image of Hannibal bent beneath Mason, and for a second, despite our situation, despite his power and my lack, red hazes out everything else and I think that I might kill him, wand or no. I could, I know in that moment, it would be easy. But a steadying breath, eyes closed, and I do not break.

_ Hannibal is alive _ I think. I intend to keep it that way, and if we’re going to get out of here, I can’t tear at Mason with my hands, my teeth, like my blood is singing for me to do. I try to catch Hannibal’s eye, see what I can read there, but he only looks politely on as Mason continues his ceaseless monologue. Blank. I don’t hear anything above the churning in my head. There are teeth marks just beneath his collar, and my mind begins to recreate what other wounds might hide beneath the cloth, what pain Mason’s written in his skin. The note thrumming now is a low, keen agony. I want to go to him, I want to put myself between them. I want to whisper those marks away in the quiet of my dormitory. And I want—

_ Focus. _

“...promise we won’t start without you; I think you’ll like this game.”

I catch on Mason’s words, my awareness snagging on him when I realize he’s addressing me. He’s smirking again, his eyes dragging fondly— _ fondly _ over Hannibal, who bears it with utter nonchalance. I search his eyes again for clues, feel again tentatively for the curl of his thoughts and find nothing, but when Mason turns his back, calls for Cordell, his gaze sharpens, points, our eyes meeting and his narrowing,

_ Trust me. _

I don’t like it, but warily, I do.

I think for a moment that in moving us, he’s finally made the mistake that we’ve been waiting for, but then a murmured jinx from one of the men who come at Mason’s call, and I am immobilized. Hannibal too, goes without sound, and we are carried upstairs, deeper into the labyrinth.

Rooms pass. I catch only glimpses, bouncing as I am against a hard shoulder, each step jarring the pain already woven through me, but I note each garish painting, each candelabra and every window. I imagine smashing one, tearing Mason’s throat open with the shards, and though the image is frighteningly satisfying, it’s useless in the face of the wands pointed at us. 

A high, open room full of cages. Another that is gold and glimmering, a long table filling most of the space. 

There are no windows in the room that we stop in, at last, only doors. I am dropped unceremoniously to the ground, Hannibal beside me, and while I gasp, try to draw in breath, Mason’s polished shoes click between us. 

He stands in the middle of the circular room like it’s a stage, and grins brightly.


	24. Chapter 24

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

“Come here, Hannibal”

A moment’s pause, a breath, though I know I must, sincerely and enthusiastically, go to him and embrace the submission, allow his fingers to wrap into me, lower the walls, all of them—all but Will’s—until the moment comes, and give him reign to do what he wishes most, what I wish least. Allow him to have me truly, to press himself against me in a way that is not abstracted and dissected thoroughly a hundred times over before I can feel it, trapped in defense mechanisms and previous experiences of pain to numb future ones.  No, what I must offer him are the parts of me that did not exist before Will, the parts that can be hurt, can fear and suffer and plea. Vulnerable. I must be vulnerable so that Will can be strong.

And trust. Which has always been so terribly far from my vocabulary, trust that when I allow myself to fall, Will will see the path laid forth and not hesitate. Will allow himself to become what I know he is capable of being and use it to our best advantage. There is no other way, I wish I could explain, but the key to the whole affair remains introducing myself to him at the right moment. I do not even allow myself to look at him beyond the stolen glance. It is always looking at him, that I fear will bring me to my knees and ruin all the things that I know I must do. That is the power he has over me. Better to do it first, without thinking or knowing, step into the limbo of action, and then allow myself the gaze.

“Come here, Hannibal.”

Again. He is standing in the middle of the empty floor, a ringmaster to the circus of pain that is to start, and I, the prime beast of burden, the greedy twist of his grin, ready for the cacophony of screams. His own, I vow, the last vengeful thought I will allow myself, his own after mine, after Will’s, if they come. Then it will be his turn. I walk in even steps towards him, mind ready to suppress and ignore the first hints of potential vulnerability as he places me in the middle of his stage. _No,_ I tell myself and allow them to come, allow them to build in me, think in passing, of a different empty room, a different darkened place, and inhale a shaky breath. The allowance of it is unsettling in and of its own, every cell in my body screaming to tuck it far, forget about it, it is nothing, but I cannot allow that. It has to build. Will is watching. I allow it to wash over me instead.

The hand reaches out for me as I approach, as it has so often done these past few days, to land in my hair and twist a strand, fake gentleness, but unlike those days, when it disgusts me I allow my stomach to turn, a pang of nausea at the unwelcome stroke, the invasion of space that is mine, when my skin crawls, I turn my cheek away, shrink back.

“Don’t.” I murmur, because at its rawest, the truth is I do not want it, a series of sounds I can barely recognize. “Please.”

From the space before us, Will’s gasp is all but audible. Mason’s hand tightens, but the...predator is incorrect, he is not that, the _scavenger_ in him is pleased.

“Don’t…” He pauses. “ _please?”_

The hand yanks and the gasp I make comes unmuffled from my lips, I loathe it, loathe the sound of it tumbling free, when suppression would have been so simple, but he yanks again and it catches my breath.

“My,” The tug is strong it tilts my whole neck back at a sharp angle, “My.”

Chin up as he appraises me. “We have certainly become vocal.” Harder, the strain growing, almost impossible to maintain, would be, without his stony grip. “It really is magical what one _good_ night of fucking can do, isn’t it?”

The word I detest and so I avert my eyes and he crows. “Oh, Hannibal. This is—Oh, this is—” He turns to Will, still keeping me breathless, suffocating slowly. “Are you _seeing_ this? He said he would play, but this is, well, Not even, _I_ —”

Where I might have kicked the feet from under him to scramble away, I only choke, helpless, breath, I need air. He has to give it to me, he has me. I am his. His, his, his, perhaps if I only repeat it enough times, it will become easier.

“Oh—” The gaze rounds back on me and his fist in my hair shakes, sends tremors through the sore muscles of my spine, quieted aches thrumming now back into life. My lower back especially burns in agony, remembers the unnatural stretch, the cloying sleep, and throbs. “Are you having some trouble? It’s so hard for me to know what you really like and what’s hurting you.”

Away from me again, sugary sweet. “He’s just so hard to read, you know? Sometimes it’s yes, sometimes it’s no, but when he’s close.” A cackle from somewhere distant, I struggle for a shallow breath. “it all sounds like it’s coming from a whore. Do you think he paid those nice boys at the Christmas party last year, or—” His breath is hot on my skin suddenly and he’s kissing at the bend of my neck, around where my throat is trembling for oxygen, his eyes are turned to the side though. “Do you think they paid him?”

A flash hits us both suddenly, electric, a spark of pure energy jolted right to the brain and Mason drops me, an unstifled sound of pain as my body crashes into the cold stone floor. It’s familiar and I long to wrap myself into it, but it’s gone again before I can snatch for it, back to its owner who is kneeling on the floor, hands in fists, eyes dark and stormy. A precursor to a storm. The rumble of thunder in the distance.

Mason reaches a hand down for me and yanks me up, presses lips into my ear to whisper, “You are, _delightful_ like this,” to which I only clamp down on my tongue, allow his hand to reach around my waist and down in a teasing stroke.

“So _very_ effective it would seem.” Closer still, his fingers find a sore spot and dig, enjoy the responding groan, and low again, he murmurs against me, “I’m going to fuck you where you stand after this, when we see how to control him.” A scrape of teeth along the line of my throat. “Feed him all that delicious rage you’re brewing.”

Not rage, I think, as I allow him to run his hands down under my shirt, untuck it to find skin and spin me around against him.

I am facing Will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read on! Today's update is a long one, make sure you read through until the end. Go on, hit that next chapter button :)


	25. Chapter 25

**Will**

* * *

 

He is facing me.

Mason’s words dig like barbs against my skin, as I’m sure they’re meant to, but they are only an irritant, vague and distant compared to the look Hannibal tries and fails to turn away from my gaze while his shirt is dragged up to reveal ribs, then chest. I remember watching him dress in the dim light of morning before the trial, and nausea churns in me when our eyes lock, Mason’s hands moving him as he pleases. With a familiarity that—

I don’t want to think about it, but the galaxy of bruises that spreads across his skin is purpling testament to Mason’s claims, as though I didn’t know from the second I saw him. Ugliest are the ones that span his hips—lighter, less vivid than some, but they conjure a picture of greedy hands, and I am choking on my disgust, my anger, my helplessness to stop this. To take away what’s already been done.

Hannibal’s eyes meet mine, and although I get only silence when I try, cautiously, to reach out to him, they are begging. 

_ What do you need me to do? _ But there’s no answer. I take a breath that feels like ash. No air, filling my lungs with a painful grit.

“Stop.”

It’s quieter than I meant it to be, but sharp. Cold in a way I had no idea I was capable of. Mason only grins, presses it into the hollow between neck and shoulder. Hannibal’s eyes close against the touch, pulls away slightly, is yanked back.

“Make me,” Mason smirks, and tears the shirt from Hannibal’s shoulders.

There’s a high, ringing note that muffles everything else as the buttons clatter to the floor. It takes them years to fall, and I feel the static in my hands that tells me  _ I could _ , I could tear him apart. I’m not as sure that I wouldn’t destroy all of us, in this moment, when the anger roars and control teeters on the precipice of it. The pain in my chest is a clutching, living thing, scrabbling for escape, but Mason has his wand out, and there are others, I know, just outside the door. I don’t want Hannibal to hurt, I am sick with dread over what’s still to to come, nails digging crescent cuts into my palms, but I am selfish, and I want him to leave here with me, breathing and whole. No matter the cost.

Hannibal meets my eyes, but not my mind, and he is afraid, and I can’t do anything to stop it.

Again,  _ What should I do? _

There’s no answer forthcoming, only another terrible gasp as Mason grabs his hair, forces him to his knees. The sound they make against the stone is a dull crack.

Mason waves his wand almost lazily, and a thin strip of black cloth ribbons into existence, wraps itself over Hannibal’s eyes.

“Put your hands out,” he commands, usual drawl absent. He only sounds hungry.

Even without our connection, I can tell Hannibal is uneasy, the soft catch in his breath, the nervous swallow that follows the instruction. 

The flood waters are churning, the cracks echo loudly now.

Mason is impatient, strikes at him. It’s almost a swat, really, a taunt, but Hannibal is not expecting it, and our cries come in unison.

“Put out. Your hands.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

“Put out. Your hands.”

Everything becomes brighter as vision leaves me, which sounds I know, as contradiction, but I do not mean my sight. Only the endings in my skin that already live within me hyper-aware, but take on double as one sense is cut off. As though to ensure I am not left without understanding, as though to protect the rest of me as I am denied. But it works against me here, like this, works against me as a swat of hand resonates pain inside of me, echos over and over again, from every connection of sensitive cell alighted,  _ pain, pain, pain.  _ Ebb and flow. I try to hold onto my breathing. 

_ pain _

The panic is swirling now, somewhere beneath the layers of consciousness that I still hold, lighting its fuse silently, ready to explode within me should the wrong move be made. But if I lose myself to it— _ I keep my head straight, inhale, exhale, inhale _ —then I will likely retreat altogether, become a numb shell that does not react, does not comprehend, does not  _ play correctly.  _  I must push that away for as long as possible. I long for it, for retreat, to draw my shields around me, but instead comply. 

_ pain. _

Obedient. 

Obedient.

Obedient. 

I do not reach to undo the blindfold, I do not send my elbow jamming into Mason’s side, I close my eyes behind fabric, and clumsily, balance and direction shifted by the lack of sight, raise my arms in front of me.

Gasp. Groan. Snarl. The throb of wrenched muscles.

No sooner are they out, than ropes surround them, rough hewn, heavy, digging marks into my wrists as they are pulled up and up before me and then straight, my torso stretched, yanked. Yanked as far as it can be without forcing me to leave my knees, my weight suspended strangely for a moment and then with another wrench, one that leaves a roar ebbing from my throat, my arms are thrown backwards, shoulders rotating in their sockets, which presses my body simultaneously  forward and down, heavy pressure all around me, my back flat, the expanse of it vulnerable, my body trapped between my own weight and the heaviness of bonds, my arms immobile, dragged into vicious angles and further. I cannot find air in a moment of delirium, the adrenaline mixing with the terrible strain to flame everything with the heady lightness of overload and the angry nausea that threatens. 

_ pain. _

Ragged, up and down, my heartbeat, my pulse, my breaths. I want to move. But I cannot. I want to, but I cannot. Want, bound; bound, want. I struggle though there is nowhere to move myself, my legs caught by my chest, my chest caught by my arms, my arms caught by the shackles that rip into me.

He has shifted me with his will. Has spun and bent me, twisted around and around his unworthy finger, and I— I have allowed him. Put out my arms, whispered for him to bind me, moaned pleasure in his ear, at his treacherous touches. 

Slept.

Slept exhausted in his bed, his arms curving against my chest, when I should have fought.  _ Survive.  _ I remind myself, I am  _ surviving.  _ But in truth, I am submitting. Submitting on a hope. 

But it is not to Mason that I do, caught in a wave of my own acceptance. 

It is not to him.

For a moment, Will’s presence presses into me. Fades at the raucous roar of Mason’s laughter.

He is speaking but I cannot grasp words, I cannot leave my own head, I am trapped but unable to hide, I am—

I—

My head drops with the weight of something snug around my neck, dazzling tremors of memory as cold trails along the skin, chain. I recognize, with gritted teeth, with a snarl, and another, a shake of my body. 

_ pain. _

Somewhere far Will is pleading, Will knows, Will saw. And Mason, he saw too.

The scar around my neck, the frozen metal embedded. Again now, here it stings though it is not cold,  but it does not need to be, the receptors remember themselves, helped along by the full account of events, remember too well, and I am bound and I am screaming. 

If I had allowed fury, just now, I think we would all have exploded, melted together into nothingness, but I do not, have not, and instead only the fear clouds my brain, the remembrance of being small and helpless, how I have promised never to be, and I am, am now, again, now, afraid. The prickle of something feverish trembling up my skin, I am trembling, shaking, snarling.

I wish to see, the taste of bitter claustrophobia ensnares me slowly, relishing that I cannot escape its crush, I want to see. That I am not  alone, in a farmhouse in the winter, that I am not alone, locked in a basement for having screamed my dreams, that I am not alone, that he is not somewhere laughing, laughing with her while misery ensnares me. 

The images spread dreamily before my eyes.

“ _ I want to see.” _ I think I say it, I think I whimper it, and Mason’s knuckles are running against my cheek. 

“Are you scared?” His lips brush disgust along my face, a pathway of taint that breathes black and ugly, it starts from here, from this fresh touch, and seeps down through all of me, all of where he’s touched, out of the bruises, out of the teeth marks, and the cuts, the press of fingers, the push of body. Darkness seeps out of me. My darkness, his, the melding of them. I could embrace it, I could encourage it, but I shy away. I only detest it.  

“You’ve been so strong. But we all get scared sometimes, don’t we?” He opens my lips with his tongue, forces me to keep my head straight though the pressure bruises me. There is no running from it, no escaping, when I attempt to shift, he simply uses his hands. (Free hands, unbound hands, hands that hold me, that have twisted me, unworthy, touching, polluting) and presses until he is muffling my groans against his lips. His tongue pushes deeper, into the dryness of my mouth, stealing life from my lips, escaping too fast, too slow, in rhythms that make no sense and have no center. I gag around him, gasp and choke, drop low when he lets me go, regret it when it stretches my spine in too many directions at once, my hair is sweaty again, unkempt as it falls out of the places where he’d watched me comb it, fingers drifting along my hips.  _ You know I’m just going to make it  _ messy _ again.  _ A promise. A promise kept. He wrenches me up and our lips meet again.

_ Bite.  _ Angry sounds in my ear, my own voice.  _ Bite. What are you allowing? Hurt him. _

I slacken my jaw instead. 

_ You allow him.  _ It insists.

I nod. 

I do.

_ Weak.  _

And then he lets me go and I am panting. My whole body breathing as though that might allow me to catch that air I am so sorely lacking, low into my stomach and high up through my back, moving myself like a wounded creature, but to no avail. A deep breath flits out of sight with every new ache, and there is no position where peace can be found. I try to force relaxation, I try to catch up to myself again, but every shift draws different agony, and even I am not strong enough to maintain for long. Already my muscles are screaming, the edges of a maddened laugh at my swollen lips, raw, the sound, terrifying. It pitches up and screams as I press too far with a fidget. All I wish, in this second, in this suspension of time, is to tuck my body into itself and curl up far, somewhere very far. 

I confess, I forget where I am, what I am supposed to be achieving, I forget catering to the force that builds behind Will’s skin, I forget almost entirely, everything. 

But it is not enough. It is still not enough. Mason is pressing me, and I am in pain, and I am fearful, and the panic is coming, but it is not enough. 

It has to be enough. 

“Please.” I murmur, only loud enough for him to hear, I pray. This cannot all be for nothing, all the concessions made, the touches allowed, the blood and darkness. Slur the words, swallow my pride, bend my head over further, bow myself though the position is all but impossible. “Mason, please.” I know he’s listening, I strive to mean it, put everything else away, the anguish bleeding out, the tired core of exhaustion, the vulnerable truths below. Surrender. And I ask. “hurt me.”

The taint around me grows. My head spins, I think tears of exertion are tracking from my eyes.

Around me there are sounds of movement.

“Mason.” Will’s voice borders on cruel, I struggle not to reach for it. I struggle to pretend I cannot hear it at all. “Mason.” Sharp, but terrified, suddenly. Eyes seeing something I cannot as footsteps cross back and forth around me. 

_ I want to see.  _

“Mason. Don’t. Mason. That’s—” He’s on his feet now from the sound of it, voice racing, but he’s not moving, not daring to move. The edge is there still, something more there still, but the fear envelops his tongue. And then in the starkest voice I have ever heard him use, voice that promises rending limb from limb, mixed with several cadences not entirely his. “You’re insane.”

“So stop me.” Mason does not appear to hear it as I do, is delighted, practically elated as he nears me again. “I already told you. What are you afraid of?” He’s paused, turned, the inflection of his voice shifting. “Afraid you’ll get all tangled up with me and not see your way out?” A snort. “But that wouldn’t be so bad for you, I’ve seen things I know you can  _ only  _ dream about.” Laughter, laughter, crazy, like my own, the edge of mania, but he pushes himself there all on his own. “I can share my toys, if you play nice. I think you’d like that. I think you  _ like  _ listening to all of these pretty little sounds, he’s capable of  _ so  _ many more, I could—”

He’s paused suddenly, frozen. Everything frozen, I feel pressure too, against the final wall left up in my mind, insistent, battering.   _ Will.  _

And then it’s gone again. Mason roaring. 

“You just  _ can’t  _ commit. That’s going to be a  _ real  _ problem for you when you finally want to fuck him, headcase, take it from me, a real problem.”

Will’s breathing is loud.

“But all the same, I think you’re warming to it all, and I am happy to share, I am. But people are  _ always  _ trying to take what’s mine. And I just cannot allow that, you understand. So just to make sure we all know where we are with each other—”

A flush of air against me, something moving, and I freeze. The heat blisters my face.

“Here, do you think?”

The skin on my cheek is burning from sources unknown, I do not know if it is magic, if it is repairable, I do not move, do not breathe, in the terrifying sudden flood as my cheek turns mottled colors and I cannot see the cause, I cannot move myself away, I. cannot. move. myself. away. I am trapped as the fear snares, as the fire comes, nothing, and suddenly I wonder in swirls of half coherent thought, if I truly have miscalculated, if he intends to flay me, kill me. 

In the flame colored burst of fear, I give in to impulse before reason and spirit myself as far away from it as I can go as the layers begin to split. Watch in the illusions of my brain, the last wall trembling, upkeep of it too much as I put my mind through its paces, disarray reigning in my halls, only just repaired from the last incident, as bookshelves fall around me, mirrors shatter, glass comes flying apart, but not with rage, not with the push of magic that had consumed me at Hogsmeade and set this into fruition. Instead with the thick blanket of despair that follows me as I race to find safety but only bring disaster with me.

_ You should have been stronger.  _ The howling cackle of wolves fills my brain again, they sound for a moment like the men in the snow, and then like Will, and at last settle terrifying into the same approximation of me that whispers into my ear, vast and empty, who would not have allowed it to come this far.  _ No choice _ , I murmur to it, to the apparition.

_ Helpless.  _ He tells me with derision, and still now, helpless, fingers wrap around me, but I cannot move. I have frozen,  I am burning, I am bound by ropes that strain my arms.  _  I could save you still,  _ he’s sweet temptation, the feral edges worn from me glisten in the conflagration, the knife-sharp ridges, fatal and vengeful, the angel of death.  He is calm in the face of the chaos.  _ Rid you of this, _ fingers hook around the collar that is suddenly there, following me down, down into my mind it binds me, my arms bind too. I scream. 

_ Rid you of him.  _ His words are sound and sight, Mason’s blood sticky on my skin, hot, fresh.  _ Rid you of them _ , my name in the snow, their laughter fading into screams instead.  _ Of every weakness. _ Will's terrified eyes. ( _ weakness, weakness, he insists). _

_ You would never have to taste this again. You would never have to feel like this  _ again. A touch to the bruises down.  _ Humiliate yourself like this again. _

I shake my head at him, our eyes meeting as my body becomes slowly aware of a shifting presence, that my cheek throbs, but is still whole, largely, but in keen acknowledgment I know danger comes, muscles tightening and Mason cooing. 

“Only a warning, Papa taught me not to waste. If possible.”

And, he, I, coos,  _ There will not be another opportunity. _

_ Burn. It all burns.  _

The blare of fire is loud, my back arching into the kiss of the spell, scorching liquid as it infects my nerves, sings higher and higher. Blistering.

Everything wavers as the heat comes, the heat, and then the sear, the heady scent of my own flesh conflagrant, and the most distant understanding of how I have been marked, what has been done to my body which might perhaps not be able to be undone. 

Whistling throbs through my ears.

And then the time for coherent thoughts is over, there are only screams, my screams, sharp into the air, in the air, in my mind, ringing everywhere.

The me who is not me watches, head tilted, smiling, even as he is buried into dust, an avalanche of stones, falling down, separating into huge boulders, smashing as they fall into entropy, delighting in righting themselves against the unnatural way they’d been forced to stand. The final barrier collapses and my brain hurtles reflexively in the direction it has been so denied.  _ This is not weakness _ , I mouth the small truth to myself, grasp onto it as the fear crushes me with the stone, as everything fades, shatters and demolishes in one swooping sensation, drowning, panic fills my lungs, squeezes breath farther and farther. 

"Please."

I whisper as darkness enfolds me, as the world ceases to appear in shape, inside or out, and I am suspended for a loud beat of emptiness before everything gives way.

falling.

_ pain pain pain pain pain pain pain.  _

Down

and down, 

to crash against jagged rocks.

“Please.”

Down.

And from nowhere, as I whirl through the trap of my own mind, the tumult of noise I have created for myself, dragged in the undertow of my own orchestrations, in my leap of faith, a fall is always required, for a leap, after all, and I am plunging quickly, from nowhere something else comes, wraps around me.

Pulls me towards the surface, destructive force, vicious, angry, but it holds me gently as it tugs me into it, as we go towards its one wish. To consume, to eradicate.

Darkness but ablaze.


	27. Chapter 27

**Will**

* * *

 

The second Mason murmurs the curse, my blood chills. I know it, suddenly, I know what he intends to do, the hiss of heat that glows from the tip of his wand is meant for Hannibal. We have left him scarred, marked, and we won't leave here until he's done the same to us.

"Mason," I say, a warning. There's danger in my veins, swimming brightly before my eyes, the panic fluttering against my ribs as he tilts it towards Hannibal, smiling.

"Here?" He asks, and I don't dare reach for the stream. I know how thick the water churns just now, what's pooling red through the current. Hannibal's cry of pain comes, sharp, as heat kisses his cheek with a sick hiss, only barely but enough.

"Mason," I say again, this time a plea, panic rising over all else. Mason is talking, but I'm shaking, or maybe everything else is.

He stands above Hannibal, lowers the glowing tip of his wand to skin.

Everything crumbles.

The wall Hannibal has kept so diligently between us, to shelter me from his indiscretions and hard decisions is gone, and he floods me. The briefest second of relief as we blur, he with me, so much after the silence. 

But then. I'm brimming with pain, with fear, and the part that is me reels from it, screaming my throat raw as something else builds. There’s a rage in me that beats for Mason’s end, there’s pain; Hannibal’s and mine for him, for not being able to stop it, and there’s something else, white-hot, bright and fierce. Great, terrible cracking noises as the dam gives way, pieces crumbling. A wall carefully cultivated torn apart, and suddenly, the water roars. I stand, small in the face of the waves, and let it consume me.

Mason’s wand clatters to the ground. Small, stupid noises of shock spill from his lips with a trail of spittle.

And I  _ am  _ him—there's a rapid feeling of expansion, and I am him, I am Hannibal, we three all tangle as one. I am Mason calmly asking Hannibal to walk with me, grinning when he steps into my room without argument. I am Hannibal watching me sleep, watching bruises ruin my face. I am Mason holding a memory in hand, two faces— 

_ Two got away _

—Ringing with recognition, a whisper of their names in an unfamiliar voice, cracking with age. It means nothing to me, but Hannibal, even this deep under starts at the sound of them, but then faster, I'm pulling us through it all, Mason's memories, his thoughts, the tingle of neurons lighting rapidfire, too quickly.

All it takes is a shove.

The power feels good as it rolls through me, viscous and dark. Far away, I hear Hannibal's gasp and know that he's still connected, he feels the ripple through the room as I pull apart Mason's mind like dough. Rip, tear, drag my fingers through the insides of his mind and shred everything I find to confetti. It swirls around me, aches through me, disintegrates to my will. Easy, it is so easy. I am drunk with it.

_ Never again _ , the thought echoes through me, braces through us all, thunders with power I’ve never held. But now grasp, am grasped by. He will not touch us ever again and I am making sure of it.

For so long I have allowed. I have reflected, I have absorbed and channelled and been moved by. But it ends here, my entire being growls, it ends here. Active, my mind is finally, instead of reactive.

I crush to fine dust the image of Hannibal asleep on an ostentatious bed, too tired to move his limbs, eyelashes curled closed despite himself, a constellation of bruises along his neck, a starfield of scratches. Uneasy, desperate, rest. And my, his, our, greedy hand going to touch.

It goes to darkness.

_ More.   _ A girl sobbing as she’s pushed against glass, a watery field of gore below her, gone.

_ More. _   A creature squealing as its tusks are shredded, gone. 

_ More.  _ Until there is nothing left, the rage is in me,  _ More. _ I reach and reach, pull forward, take it, take all of it. He deserves none of it. He hurt us, he caused this pain. He brought us here. And he hurt  _ him.  _ And it’s this that does it in the end, the single thread in the tangle. Hannibal needed me. And I couldn’t—

The sizzle of his skin burns on a large screen, the combined painting of all our memories, the twisted pleasure from Mason, the unbearable agony from Hannibal, the sight of it that will never be far enough in the past to erase it from the lenses of my eyes. He laughs beneath the pressure, despite the half deterioration of his brain—a brain to match a face, now—he laughs because even still, he find this  _ amusing.  _ Hannibal’s pain  _ arousing.  _ So I twist the power to laugh away from him. Makes those connections go dark with whisper of thought, sever the the bridges that are needed. His mind, once bright with thoughts and images, is dim with darkness, and below runs the river of my power, ready to swallow him up.

Though I take his piece away, the laughter gone, the anguish is still there, the sight, and I discover a truth about myself in the terrible, powerful joy that floods me as Mason slumps, eyes dulling. It doesn’t feel ugly. It feels  _ righteous _ .

Brighter everything glows, pulsing hotter, a star ready to explode. It twists through us, _ I  _ am going to explode, power rushing now through me, too much, too bright. Mason is screaming in my head as it stretches, but another shove, so easy, a push, a twist of mind, and he falls away, fades into the ether as the power surrounds.

Without knowing, I know I will never hear his voice again. 

I don’t watch him disappear.

Everything is crumbling.

I look around then, in sudden desperation, panic suddenly despite myself, despite this power, but Hannibal is before me, not gone, there, eyes dark, the ground falling away from our feet.

He touches my hand.

And then there is only Hannibal.

My legs barely hold me when I stumble to him; I'm light headed, dizzy, and as the thrum of magic fades from me, the aches return twofold. But he is still bound, blind, the flesh of his back marred in an ugly, red circle by Mason's hand, and I take the four shaky steps that separate us.

I disregard Mason where he lays, breathing but dead-eyed, and pick up his wand from where it fell, cut the ties that hold Hannibal with a quick swipe. The only sound from Hannibal is a soft exhale as his limbs are righted, he sags to the ground. I want to ask him if he's okay, but know the answer so I don't. 

I smooth my hands gently along his jaw, lift his chin, pull off the blindfold. I am steeled to find all manner of things in his eyes, but as the silk flutters to the floor, he looks up at me and there is only pride.

We spend a longer second like that than we should—he on his knees, scraps of rope around him like fallen leaves, and I, standing, completely in awe of him as the weight of what we've each done to survive settles. Both breathing ragged, sore, broken in ways that we have yet to understand, but perhaps more alive than we’ve ever been.

And I admit, I kiss him like that. It has nothing to do with the memory of Mason's tongue and everything to do with the pull I feel when I look at Hannibal's upturned face.

We are neither one in an ideal state, so it's soft, very still. But when I pull back, he cranes up and brushes his lips over mine again, a small, sweet post-script.

"I knew that you could," he murmurs, almost dreamily. It doesn't frighten me like it should. Maybe later, when our scars are gone and what was done to us seems far away, but right now I only feel a tired relief at the fact that I'm still standing, an aftertaste of bitter pleasure at what I've done as the rush of power breaks and fades.

The guards who stood outside the door are prone, an unnerving scatter of bodies. Not empty, as they'll find Mason when they wake, but unconscious. Lightly scrambled. I take the cloak from one of them and lay it over Hannibal's already shaking shoulders, mindful of the angry red mark between his shoulder blades. It stings just to look at, worse when I realize, in the low light of lanterns, that the Verger crest rests there, traced in flame.

This thought, like many, is shoved aside until we can get somewhere safe.

These moments as we move from room to room are panicked, we're unsure of our way. Night is dawning, and only half the rooms are lit, all of them looming, to me, in unfamiliar, half-formed shadow. But Hannibal seems to know where he's going at last, an insistent tug on my hand as he recognizes something, and I follow. 

In the entry hall—so close to leaving these rooms and their secrets behind—I stop when I see the figure on the stair. 

"Will."

I flinch at the sound of my name, clutch Hannibal's hand and shift slightly in front of him. I face Margot, and she looks frightened.

"Is Mason...?" She stumbles on the word, and I wonder if it's because she fears, or because she fears to hope.

"Alive," I say, "but I can't promise much else. He won't remember."

She nods, and something steely enters her gaze. I can feel the resolve, and I know that I could break her too, if I had to.

It's strange, this new control. And not altogether welcome.

"Your broom is in the shed," she says at last, and I nod.

An understanding, then.

We go, stumble through the darkened yard, the wet grass, and then, clinging to the broom, Hannibal gripping tightly around my waist, up and through the mist of cloud cover.

I don't know where we are. I don't know how to get home. But I know that we made it out, and for now nothing else matters but the feel of his heart pounding, the steady exhales of his breath against me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that is, finally, the end of today's update. Let us know what you think, we love hearing from you!
> 
> PS: can you tell which episode had just aired when we wrote this? ;)


	28. Chapter 28

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

We fly.

In silence, we fly. My fingers curved around the wand we have taken.

The night was only just falling as we left the shadowed halls of stone and flame behind us, but it is dark now. Chilling quickly. Despite the cloak, despite Will, solid before me, shoulders set, squared in stubborn determination, goosebumps creep along my skin, turn into shivers that set into my muscles as the minutes pass, and refuse to be stymied. I could stop them, I am certain, at any other point, at any other time, I could whisper _still_ and my body would listen. But I have lost that control and it does not appear to hear the half-baked orders I attempt. The whole world, in truth, has been coated with a stupor of hazy illusion and pain. A mix of the unyielding ache from between my shoulders, aggravated by the inability to change my position, by the rub of fabric, by the flame that seems as though it is locked in place bursting to life at intervals— _magic_ , I know, a drained kind of understanding. And on the other hand, the proximity to Will, our minds tangling without permission if we do not keep ourselves separate, and we, both of us, are so exhausted.

One moment, I will be myself, and the next I am in front of me, my fingers clutched white on the broom, my own warmth behind me, soothing, I am soothing to him, to me, relieving, and then I am agony, aflame again, as I oscillate back into my own mind. It becomes dangerous, for one terrifying second, I detest flying, when suddenly he doubles over, screams pouring through his throat and I realize he has found his way fully inside of _my_ head as I have crept into his. The broom spirals, we twist through the air, my stomach clenching, muscles forced to action as I try to steady us, haltingly press him back into himself as much as is possible. Not fully, unable, unwanting, but enough so that the pain is mine alone. I give him my relief instead to hold onto.

He would argue, I sense it, is arguing.

But we are silent, so neither one of us speak.

In truth, slipping into his mind is like slipping into a daydream, an involuntary act of my own creation, just as I do not feel change at all when he is in me. This night has sundered us both, and reforged us, twined across the map of each other’s beings. There is no longer fully me and fully him, there is just more me or less.

I do not mind this.

My arms shake.

I hold fast to the stolen wand.

We fly.

I do not ask him to dip down. But his eyes fall to trace the vibrations of my limbs, dark I know, if I could see them, displeased, understanding of that I possess quite clearly. But he is aware and I, that we both feel safer in the air, that what is best for me, what is best at all, is to put as much distance between ourselves and the manor as possible. To get to where there are others, where it is safe.

The thought makes a laugh I am too tired to even exhale curve bitterly through me, spread brittle across me. I had thought home was safe, a very long time ago, and had been dissuaded quite wholly of that notion. But I had forgotten, I had allowed, and the terror crushes around my bones afresh, alights old wounds, though I refuse to name it as such.

I just simply prefer to continue to be in the air. There, that is all. The air is empty and it is known, though I am cold, and the brand is unyielding in its throb, fever only a moment’s more of chill away... And shock, every time it gives a sudden lurch of life again, the spell tracing through to make it burn like the first, the cold clammy fingers that run along me then, hold my head underwater, the dissolving of the world to torment with sudden race of breath that I cannot control, echos of touch twisting through me, inflaming the soreness of my spine, in the bend of my back and lower.

“I’m exhausted.” Will’s voice sounds suddenly, from nowhere as an episode fades, and we are not silent any longer. The words are hoarse, too low in his throat, syllables knitting strangely, not the usual tone but something rougher, not the curving hiss of power, not the sheepish, awkward, cadence that is familiar to me, that I miss, inexplicably, as I hear the dragging raw edges that attack him, the wounds carved out of his being. I have longed for him, I realize as it floods hot through me. In my disconnection, I had tried not to think of him at all, not to feel him, not to envision him, not anything, thought only of pushing through what was necessary so that we could get to this point here. But now, now, now I consider in a startling pound of ache, how much he has suffered, the traumas inflicted on him, alone, without me. I left him. And they hurt him and I have not yet measured how much. Tired rage fills me, and because I am exhausted, strained and in pain, broken down to the very fundamentals of emotion and existence, unbidden tears flood my eyes.

His voice is hoarse, it is twisted, _he_ is. And it is my fault.

“ _Hannibal_ —” He starts and it’s softer but I shake my head against him.

No.

No.

I’m fine.

We are gone from there, it is over.

“Okay.”

I say instead of an addressing anything, because there is nothing to address. Lean more fully against him, drop my head to his shoulder.

A gasp muffles as the movement wreaks agony inside of me, the brand choosing this moment to  engulf my mind, the nausea spinning, the altitude furthering the breaths, shallow. Everything is whirling. Sweat dropping against my forehead.

“If you are exhausted.”

He’s set it up for me to take and I do, and I am grateful.

“If you are exhausted, then we have to rest.”

Definitive. I do my best to embody the tone.

The urge to say more trembles in the space between us, palpable in our connection but he doesn’t, only nods, turns the nose of the broom down until we can see the tops of trees again. I pretend and he pretends, and together we do not discuss, the fear that solid ground leaves heavy in our throats, the darkness of the trees.

I want sunlight, I want to see, everything, I want to know exactly what is before me. Behind my eyes, the darkness of the blindfold descends for one terrifying moment, the cloying smell of burning flesh as a mark stretches wide against the expanse of my skin.

And then I am pulled from it, insistently tugged by a force I cannot fight.

_He is powerful._

_Radiant._

_I look up at him with awe, with pride, he did it, exactly as I knew he would._

_He did more._

That thought at least, brings true comfort, an upward tilt to my lips, as he settles me back in my place.

Anguished, but not panicked.

“There?” He asks, his mouth barely opening wide enough to speak, heavier now. Growing heavier with every second. I am him again in a flash, exhaustion, worry, a quiet despair and more than anything a fierce determination to protect.

His love.

My love.

The twined fingers of our minds.

I see through his eyes, and with a blink through mine, the little colony of deserted ruins nestled in a clearing of the woods. At first they look like nothing but eroded boards, but as we fly closer, I see they were once houses, torn at the seams.

Scars of a war, not unlike our own. Empty now, but standing still. Abandoned, but we have come to fill them.

It will not be much shelter, but it is better than the prospect of nothing at all. A vantage point, if nothing else, and a sadness in them that resonates, a grief that matches our own, over what was lost. Might perhaps never be reclaimed. They are a held breath, they wait to see what morning will bring.

I try not to think about my own house, somewhere I do not even recall, sitting like this, alone but for a wandering spirit.

What spirits of the dead haunt here, I wonder? Or are we them and simply cannot see. Perhaps we are all already dead.

But Will is with me. And I am here, and we are together. The moon shimmers eerie along the planks as our feet skim the overgrown shrubs. Wild too, I decide, this place, the power of nature overwhelming all, in the end. Vines twisting through house frames, trees bursting through floors.

The wildness resonates through the raw edges we’ve allowed, the primal urges we’ve given way to, to allow us to find this night. It howls through, stark and savage.

In this moment, it feels as though we are alone in the world.

He turns as the broom lands, to perfectly time his arm slipping beneath my shoulders as I sag, in a way that Will’s inherent clumsiness should prevent him from being capable of, and heavily, in a way my inherent stubbornness should prevent me from being capable of, I lean into him, allow him to hold my weight, support me as we slide seamlessly into each other.

_He is powerful._

_He is mine._

_He is not weakness._

Together, in some fashion, we have survived.


	29. Chapter 29

**Will**

* * *

 

My breath leaves me in a cloud and stings in my lungs. I am afraid of frost, imagine I can already feel its crackle on the air, curving through the filigree and coating the carpet of leaves beneath my feet, but I don’t say this out loud. Hannibal knows anyway. It’s because of him I fear it.

He is busy casting spells around our found haven, moonlight sliding silver fingers across his face, where it leaks through the rafters. I don’t suppose we’re being watched, imagine we’ll be long gone from here by the time anyone comes to investigate, if they even care about a few odd protection spells in the woods, and so I just wait for him go through his solemn ritual.

Neither of us ask what he’s protecting us from.

There’s not much in this house that is not a house. Blackened beams reached toward the sky as we landed, the world too quiet here. There’s no hum of insects, no animal sounds in the underbrush. Magic has touched this place, and magic has not left it. Only the sigh of wind in the trees, as I half-carried him past a street sign now overgrown with ivy and into the first of several ruins with caved-in roofs, branches shoving their way through windows.

The whispers that reach for me from every corner, echoes of those that have gone, they are almost screaming in this place, begging for me to touch, to soak in, to become. To tell their stories and their pain. I brush them aside like cobwebs, only momentarily marveling at my ability to do so; I’m not interested in endings, just now.

No, there’s not much inside, likely the homes— _ houses _ , I correct, safer—were picked clean after whatever events led the beams to char, the wallpaper to split and crack blackly. Trees to sprout young, thin limbs in the spaces where light bleeds through the sparse roof. But there is a hearth, the stones standing despite pieces of the walls not, and there is kindling, with a little creative destruction.

Behind me, Hannibal’s voice sounds thin in the emptiness of the room as he murmurs spells into the silver and black night.

There’s shards of mirror on the floor, mingled with years of accumulated leaves and debris. I sweep them away with my feet, watch the way they glitter darkly through a coat of dirt and soot. I can’t see myself in them when I look down, but if I could I’m not sure I’d like or recognize what looked back.

Hannibal’s back is to me. The soft shift in the air from his last spell ruffles my hair.

“Hannibal,” I say quietly, trying not to let concern seep into my voice. I put my hand carefully on his shoulder; I don’t know where and how badly he hurts.

_ That’s more than enough _ I think to say, but don’t. Maybe it’s not. Maybe all the magic in the world won’t stop me from starting at every snapped twig, rustle of leaves, seeing Mason step grinning from the cold night.

_ Mason is gone _ , I remind myself,  _ he’s only a shell _ .

Even still.

Hannibal’s shoulders slump beneath my palm. He turns his head enough to look, so the jut of his cheek is lined with moonlight, and I don’t think I will ever stop looking at him.

“We’ll need a fire,” he agrees, though I didn’t say. We’ll need a fire a lot more—and more immediately—than we’ll need another shield charm or five. He doesn’t move, so I take the wand gently from his hand and crouch on the space of floor I cleared.

The flames are calming. I get the fire roaring, it licks gold light across the ruined house, makes our shadows dance large on the dirty, filigreed wall behind us where we sit, hungry and tired and silent. I’m exhausted, it wasn’t a lie. My head throbs, my eyes are heavy, but there's a hollow ache in my chest, and sleep seems a long way off.

“Will they follow us?” I ask finally. The fire is warming the space already, making me drowsy. Hannibal shakes his head. His knees are tucked up to his chest, his arms crossed over them. His pants are too short, not made for him, and the cuffs hover inches above where they should.

“I think they will find Mason guilty of enough that even Verger money would be hard-pressed to buy more than silence.”

I think of Mason smiling triumphantly—or maybe Hannibal does, tangled as we are—the vial holding a stolen memory clutched between pink fingertips.

Another image threatens, dances at the edge of perception, but I force it away, unready to face it and unwilling to remind Hannibal.

“They won’t be eager to add us to his tally,” I realize, lips twisting the words into something bitter. A part of me is angry, shockingly so. I’m angry about the months of fear, of worry that Hannibal’s life was to be ruined. That Mason won’t have to abide by the same, for what he’s done to us. All of it reduced to a quiet footnote.

A part of me burns with it, feels like I didn’t give him half of what he’s owed.

The rest of me is only sad.

“I didn’t,” I start, feel it stick in my throat. Hannibal’s eyes are quick to find me, dark. They reflect the flickers of orange light. I swallow, try again, “It didn’t feel bad, when I—well. It felt good.”

Even now, I can’t summon any guilt. Fear, yes, of the fierce joy I’d felt, and of what that means about me. But if we were in that room again, if someone was hurting Hannibal…

I’d do it again. Maybe more. The cold seeps through my sleeves, and I am quietly horrified.

Hannibal tilts his chin where it rests on his arms, thinking.

“Doing bad things to bad people makes us feel good.” 

He says it the way he says “after you” when holding a door; light. Conversational. Half his face is cast in shadow the way his head is angled, it draws sharp lines under his cheeks and eyes. I remember words said to me in the shades of evening, Molly telling me sadly  _ I think he’s not good _ , and realize with a shiver that this is what she meant.

“What will  _ you _ do?” I ask quietly. The silence that follows is thick with the crackle of the fire, the smell of woodsmoke and mildew, old leaves and dust. He doesn’t move, but blinks a few times, and both of our thoughts travel to the men whose blood he spilled in the long-ago snow. The two he didn’t. Names he’d drawn from Mason in the last moments.

“...I don’t know.” he says. His voice is barely louder than the whisper of wind through the rafters above us. He doesn’t look at me. 

I scoot across the last inches that separate us, stiff and wincing, and lean against him, trapping warmth between our sides though our hands are both cold when I twine them. I don’t know what good means, and bad. I know that if we  _ are _ bad, Mason was far worse, and maybe that’s all that matters. Morality a sliding scale of lesser evils. People would have been hurt, and now they won’t. 

Maybe it’s less good and bad at all, but a world of gray equations.

Whatever else is uncertain, we are real, and this moment. We are alive; we  _ survived _ . I won't ever choose not to fight for this, for the soft sound of Hannibal breathing next to me.

We sit awake for as long as we can, but it’s not long before sleep comes anyways, and presses our eyes closed where we lay tangled in the quiet firelight. If I dream, I don’t remember it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene was greatly influenced by [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al21Vtlsg4A). I have a particular playlist for when I'm actually writing, all instrumental, and this is my "cold sensation of being balanced on the precipice of change" song, reserved for being on the hinge between two arcs. :)


	30. Chapter 30

**Hannibal** | _Interlude_

* * *

 

_My whole body is leaden, exhaustion, and my brain functions in bursts of leaping action but wavers into confused whirls, unable to focus on one path, unable to remember for very long where it was going or why._

_But I know that I am dirty._

_“Wi-” A struggle of mouth to form the word, coax the lips into the shape I need. But I need. I need. I need. “Will” - it comes as little more than a breath, but he is there, he is so close, he is against me, my fingers have clutched into him at some point in the night. “Want -” A fight for sensical english, I would simply reach out, touch him with my thoughts, but they are in too confused a blur for him to take anything from them. “Want a bath.”_

_It’s been three days, three exhausted days, ugly days, full of dust and dirt, the ravages of the forest and the blood of the dungeon since I have showered, and even the shower, that shower, even the memory of that shower creeps uncleanliness into me, the push of hands along my body, trailing up my spine, so tired, already so tired, but more tired now, pressing me into white china, the dark, reddened, water seeping down my skin, and all around me, and him. Arms around my chest, dragging me down, mouth parting, and._

_Not very clean at all. Not -_

_“You want a bath?” Will’s voice interrupts the flood of images, scatters them precisely, as my swollen eyes lift open just enough to see him. He is pale too, tired too, he slumps in the bed as though he is trying to push straight through it. Dark circles under his eyes, dressed in his oversized shirts and a ratty old pair of boxers. Usually I would shake my head at them, say something sarcastic, but today they leave me with a shivery fondness._

_I love him, the thought clenches my chest, I love him._

_I wonder what I am wearing, I wonder who dressed me, I try to reach for the thoughts, but I can’t remember._

_A breath, mouth open again, an attempt to push air through, but in the end I only tilt my cheek up to look at him and nod.  Nod again. Watch him drowsily, on the verge of falling back into darkness, but I want._

_“Please.”_

_He could call my Aunt, but he knows that’s not what I’m asking, not what my feverish eyes looking up at him are pleading for. Only from him, can I ask this, I don’t want him to be tired, I don’t want him to get up if his body protests. But I want. Want a bath._

_“Okay, Hannibal.” His lips are soft on my forehead and I press myself into them, almost like being clean, the whisper of them along my heated skin, and for a moment the image of the bath  flies away completely, something, fever, potion, making it very difficult to hold onto the ends of my thoughts, as I’ve said, perhaps I’ve said. They try to slide._

_But then I shift and the sheets are fresh beneath me, washed and pressed, tucked in, and I am sweat and blood atop them, dark upon them, blemishing, and I do not want that._

_I want to be clean._

_I cling to it, keep it pressed between my fingers to my chest._

_And I have told Will._

_I have told Will what I want and he will not forget for me._

_With weary gaze, I watch him, taste the fever on me as I try to concentrate, the rich, cloying, sweetness of sickness, the pain that lurks just beneath. There are bandages on my  back but I cannot quite recall why just now. Only flame, sears too hot into my raw thoughts, flame and agony, and Will, bright and avenging. Radient. More destructive than all of them. A force, my force._

_I was proud of him. I am proud of him now._

_Doing bad things to bad people. My words echo through me. Makes you feel good._

_Now he is wan, as he moves beleaguered limbs, pushes himself in slow inches up as though the air itself is fighting to force him back. Gravity too strong in this room, pinning us to our mattress, I wish I could help him, but he smiles at me and I lose myself in the smile. Smile back though it makes something in his features paint with sadness. A beautiful fragile despair. I wish I could take my pencil to paper and capture it, but I am far too ungraceful for that at present, so I only smile at him again, and wish I could pull him back to me._

_I want to hold him again._

_But then he has risen, limping steps to the bathroom, and the sound of water running comes the flow of it taking me, soothing, not like the angry stream of a strange shower, no soft familiarity, the imagination of steam rising. A familiar scent of soap coming out to my nose after a time._

_“Please.”_

_I say to the air._

_“Please.”_

_I have never wanted to be clean more in my life. Almost. Never. Wanted to be so._

_“Please.”_

_And he comes back for me, a trembling hand through my hair as I nuzzle against it._

_“Yes.” He’s lowering himself to push an arm under mine, pajama clad, I look down and realize, mine, striped and silken. That is agreeable, I like that. I tell him, and he laughs._

_“I know you like them Hannibal, but we’re gonna have your bath now, like you want.”_

_I nod, I do want, want so much, as we slide into what has become the normal way of getting around, my body heavy against his, he half dragging, half carrying me as I focus on making my limbs follow the lead. It is not weakness to depend on him though, of course not, he is only more of me. An extension, another part, as I am of him, and we are together, so I allow him, we’d begun to blur a long time ago, and now there is no separation, no end or beginning.  I allow him to see me like this and hold the strength instead, because I am still holding it, in truth, we hold all of it together. We hold each other._

_“I want.” I exhale, and we go, into my bathroom with its large tub, and its cream colors, and its soft lights. Not ugly and cold, not ostentatiously modern and lacking taste. No hands here, creeping and crawling and unseaming me, thread by thread. It is mine, I control it, no one else can._

_Will’s fingers find mine and guide them to the hem of my shirt, I tangle into the fabric and he pulls my wrists as I pull the shirt and in that way I undress myself and he guides me, and so it is me, and no one else, not even him, who does it._

_I drag myself to the edge without him when I am bare, as he hovers behind me. The pulse in my back from the moment I cannot remember strikes to life for a moment, and the world becomes blurry and colorful, but I ignore it and creep myself into the water._

_The water._

_It is achingly perfect along my skin, not enough in me to move my fingers and scrub at the grime, but there is the soap that Will put into the warmth already and it scrapes against me, lifts layers even if they are only the very surface of the problem and floats them away. Covers me up to my neck in something clean, that seeps the dirt from me, and that I seep dirt into, it brings me closer, makes me more orderly, more perfect. I sink lower into it and let the bruises sting, the cuts ache, and water lift all of it, the memory of the days, the physical reminders, farther from me._

_“Hannibal?”_

_Will lingers, his presence is bright, bright like the water and I reach for it too._

_“It’s kay.” I offer, bending my neck to press my cheek into the suds. “You can.” I consider idly if I could press all of me under, if I’d be able to come all the way back up again, and Will makes a halted movement against the marble of the floor, I think catching an alarmed trace of the thought. I laugh at him, a laugh a little crazed. “Want you.”_

_And he does, strips himself and settles in next to me, and it is much nicer to tuck my cheek into his shoulder than it was into the water, press the remaining parts of me against him, press our limbs together._

_It is not suffocating._

_It is not overwhelming._

_It does not make a scream begin in my throat, to have more touch piled upon me._

_It is Will, and he drags soap and sponge along my back, across my body, just as I desire, to dig through all of it and fade it away, to make it so when I put on a new set of my pajamas, with the stripes that I like, and slip into the sheets that will be new by the time we leave, I am clean like them, clean like me._

_A murmur of contented noise from my lips and I burrow farther into him, let his fingers drag slowly, his own movements heavy too, through the matted tangles of my hair, rinse away the sweat, the echoes of yanking and pulls._

_I lean up and he leans down and we kiss softly again in the water._

_“Thank you.”_

_I tell him and he pulls me closer._

_“Welcome.” A creep of tremulous affection. And I nod, I am glad he is here, I am glad we are together._

_Then._

_“We’ll be okay.” He promises me, a touch of that new found determination sparking to life despite everything, and I am content for him to make that decision for us both. “The potions will help, and we’ll sleep, rest and go back to Hogwarts. You can be number one in all your classes and we’ll get that chocolate from Hogsmeade you wanted. Bev will be there and Alana. I think they’ve missed us.  We’ll have fun again. And it’ll … it’ll all be okay.”_

_“Of course.” I murmur as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “Have you.” and he says nothing at that but, his fingers shudder against my skin._

_Don’t be sad, I want to tell him,  but the potions make it hard to keep the thinking straight, the lull of his motions against me, and I lose the thread before I can speak it. Lost most threads. For a time I only nuzzle against him, mutter nonsense and attempt conversation I can’t hold. And then, before I know it, I float away._  

_When I awake, I am clean, my hair is combed, my body pressed into my pillow, everything smelling sweet, some of the physical contamination, at least, gone from my body. He is asleep still._

_Our hands twined together._


	31. Chapter 31

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

Journal. 

It is finally Saturday.

I am thankful for that. Though it is not nearly as thrilling as my fate hanging in the balance or a slew of near death encounters, school is quite capable of being exhausting all on its own. A full week in and though I am glad for the  distraction   occupation that it provides, there is a certain grate to the being thrust back into normalcy. Especially when normalcy itself has not changed, not even shifted minutely, though we are entirely altered. I was never very good at fitting into it to begin with, but now it seems even more an unnecessary charade. The constant flood of the flock, obsessed with their petty lives, laughing about small intrusions to their peace, I thought before they were unworthy, but now their inability to be anything more than shallow at kindest, digs into my skin. It becomes a chore to listen to their inane questions in class, a forcible drag of control to not unsheath my wand at the smallest of infractions. 

But I am. Fine. I am fine. Not on edge in the least bit. Not twisted too tightly. It is not me. It is them. All of them, except for Bev whose presence is soothing, though she knows we are keeping something from her, knows that Will has been absent when he was not supposed to be, and that though there was no trial, I have been gone. That we have both returned gaunt and slightly haunted to our seats at whatever table we have all gathered at that morning. Bev, and Alana. Who stops me quietly in the hall and begs me to let them both in, slightly tearful, but determined.  _ She’s been a mess. She’s been so worried. We tried to read the papers, we tried to ask Professor Crawford, but no one would tell us anything. And now you’re back and— _ She wavers and only nods when I smile at her, the gentle smile that once might have convinced her, but now only leads to a narrowing of eyes, a smile I do not feel and she does not accept, and assure her we are quite alright. 

She wants to argue, but bites her tongue.  _ Okay, Hannibal.   _ They hold hands under the table now, I notice, Alana reaching over to take Bev’s and squeeze whenever she suddenly gets quiet amidst regaling us with a tale of something that happened while I was on house arrest, a cloud coming over her features. It would seem Will and I are not the only ones who have been pushed closer by this ordeal. I regret that they have suffered for me. 

Bev, Alana, and Will, of course, Will. Will who shifted much of his schedule to match mine after only a day in, though I have protested.

_ “You’ll need help catching up.” _ He said crossly, not looking up from the moon chart in his lap, fingers running through his hair, directing the frustration at the divination homework, admittedly useless, and not at me for my scolds. Even though we both know I won’t. That even having missed a month and a half of school, it won’t matter in the least to my education or my ability to keep up with the rest. That I will only have to have read the notes twice and I will be more than ready.

What I need help with is breathing in his absence.

I might have pressed a little too hard on those words, inadvertent tightening of fingers, my apologies, journal. 

But we both pretend not to know that, and I will in a moment proceed to pretending I didn’t write it, either. Still, it is impossible to lie to one another. Our connection, though faded from the inseparable quality it took on for a time, is stronger than ever, and to move to shut it, even slightly, for either of us is unthinkable. But the sudden need for physical distance is difficult after the blur of the last two weeks spent curled up in each other’s arms. Two weeks of bedrest and exhaustion, swooping nausea and bouts of fever. Our bodies giving way to the stresses that had been put onto them, and then unable to take the immediate vertigo that relief and safety brought. The poor nutrition, stale air, and the last stretch of moonlit nights spent in the damp cold, also unhelpful generally. 

We stumbled into my Aunt’s in the early morning of the third day after escape, and all but collapsed. She did not ask questions, as is her way, only pulled us both to her, Will shocked and then pleased at the hug, I—I confess, melting into it myself, into her warmth, her cleanliness, the ever comforting scent of cloves. Tears, I think, in every eye. I have quashed the crying habit, in case you were interested in knowing, I will not allow more of it.  And then it becomes hazy, potion induced confusion, I presume. Perhaps I consented to the medicine somewhere between the angry ache of muscles that curled my spine, perhaps after I awoke screaming after only a few hours of sleep, perhaps because the bed was finally so soft and there was no claustrophobic. cloying. press of body against— 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


In any case, I only mean to say, it was pleasant to be in a bed once more. I have brief recollections of moments, Will’s fingers working something cooling to quench the fire at my back, our bodies twining in the warmth of water, the welcome scent of soap, sweat and ache drenching into sheets that became  _ thankfully _ clean beneath us no sooner did morning come. Relief that melted in and out of consciousness.  I think that somewhere in the dazed days, Jack came to see us, his low voice sounding in my distant memories. But Lady Murasaki refused him entry, calmly, her voice pervading into my dreams, informed him we had gone on an unsuccessful camping trip and returned ill.

_ Hannibal went camping?  _ Unamused black humor in his tone. And I suspect now that I have had time to think on it with a clear head that he knows, but he has not spoken to us of it yet. 

_ Will inspires him to try things other than what he might incline to naturally.  _  Sharp rebuke in hers. She has always fought for me. 

The memory, the warmth of her words through me, turns into the syrupy edges of induced peace.

I release it for now, and shift to see the time, early, too early for breakfast still, which is relief because it allows me a few hours  to myself before the necessary facing of the crowd of noises which irritate and overwh— annoy me. Even now, the snores of the other boys in the Ravenclaw dormitory play on my nerves, the sound of their sleepy breathing, and rustling shifts. When they wake, they will chortle and curse, loudly slam trunks and generally be less than appealing.  Perhaps tomorrow I will cast a silencing charm before we close our eyes...Though perhaps not, I do not want to bring back that too long look to Will’s eyes. It has been several days since I have have last seen it and I would prefer him to believe, as is true of course, that we are settling back, that the routine is occupying enough to keep thoughts from drifting into any spaces they should not. Homework, classwork, friends, resuming life as ever, nothing short of that. But I do not like sharing this space with them, I do not like them sitting around me and me unable to make them go, I do not like the encroachment, miss the quiet walls of my Aunt’s house where I was free to order and reorder as I pleased. Where the spaces were  _ mine  _ or  _ ours.  _  Not  _ theirs.  _

But to suggest we stay there for the remainder of the year, would be even worse than casting the abnormal charm. And it would hurt Will, I think, who would go, but wishes to spend the time he has missed in our group, in the rhythms of life, together.

He shifts next to me, a sleepy contented noise, and I distract myself watching him, he distracts me, the fondness casting away the petty displeasures at once, that he is here, that he is with me, the pale watery morning sun casting his face in soft shades. I want to reach out, achingly, I want to reach out, but something has stopped me. Has stopped him. Has stopped us both, since we have returned, and though we spend most minutes together, come together, the warmth of our bodies playing lightly along the other’s, when we sleep, we content in the proximity that follows from lying next to each other; have not yet reached out to actively break the space between us in more than fleeting touches. Small twines of finger and nuzzles of cheek. We do not yet match our physicality with the way our minds wind together. But we have not in truth done so, since what feels like a very long time ago. At least there are no more towering obstacles between us.

I edge closer to him and it eases something in my chest I had not realized had even built.

But we are settling, as I said, we are fine. We have gone from that place and we are back where we should have always been.  It is only a matter of giving it time.

I close my eyes and try to loosen the strain of my shoulders, unclench my fists, enjoy the normalcy that has returned to grace us, embrace it.

H.L.


	32. Chapter 32

**Will**

* * *

 

It’s strange, to write again. Such a familiar ritual, but I haven’t stopped to think  _ why _ in some time. It’s not to “sort out my feelings” at this point. I think that, for the first time, I don’t have a problem with that—my own, or others’.

Maybe it’s just because there are still empty pages.

It’s also strange to be back, in that it’s not strange at all. Our time with Mason, and after, the fever-bright days, drinking bitter potions and drifting between empty sleep and painful awareness, it all seems like a dream in the face of classes, the smells of parchment and magic, meals in the Great Hall. Fall is crackling cold through the air, winter quick on its heels. 

Hannibal and I wrestle spectacularly with our cutting of Tentacula in the warm steam of the greenhouse. He laughs when one of the tendrils slaps the side of my head, and I blink in exaggerated shock. We smile. It’s easy.

Another day. We have an essay spread out across our table under the window at the library. Bev assures Hannibal flippantly that Crawford hasn’t covered anything that’s not in the book, he’ll catch up quickly. Nobody notices the very full pause as she stumbles over what to term his absence, or maybe we’re all stubborn enough that we just refuse to acknowledge it.

Snow falls lightly outside the window. Everyone says it won’t stick.

I wake in the night to find Hannibal risen from bed, practicing his Patronus charm. I watch the silvery, cat-like figure shiver in and out of existence while it prowls the room, then fades. I shut my eyes again before he sees me, and he sighs, frustrated, tries the words again. Silver light flickers against my eyelids, but again and again, it shimmers out.

The quidditch pitch is a constant, dull roar. Faces around me, rosy with excitement, with the brisk cold, wrapped in hats, in scarves and turned up collars. Alana watches the game unfold to my right with uncharacteristic enthusiasm; her shouts and groans quirk my lip. I wouldn’t have taken her for a sports fan, still don’t, but I know there’s a beater out there in Ravenclaw blues that she’s got her eyes on. I wonder, smile broadening, if they also piss off their dorm mates by shuttering her four post at whatever time suits them. To my left, Brian yells as the Gryffindor seeker dives suddenly, pumps his fist happily as a bludger knocks her sideways.

“So where’s Hannibal?” he shouts over the crowd, leaning in when the roar is at its least deafening. The question catches me off guard, coming from him.

“He’s uh… not really a fan,” I say. Alana’s eyes keep flickering back to us, though she pretends not to be listening. Jimmy makes no such attempt.

“Really?” he squints, leaning around Brian, “I thought he’d love a chance to see a certain blonde chaser get knocked off her broom.”

Alana tears her eyes away from the pitch long enough to shoot him a disapproving look.

“What?” Jimmy says, unabashed, “He would, let’s not pretend—”

The rest of his words are lost as shouts build, Gryffindor makes an attempt to score.

I think, but don’t say, that it’s not the sport Hannibal is avoiding.

A quiet ringing fills my ears, silencing the crowd as everyone else leaps to their feet, and for a second it seems like I am not sitting in the stands, but in a dim room with only two small windows. I can’t move, it’s as though I’m still bound, my breath sticks in my suddenly tight chest, it all blurs, and beside me Alana is mouthing  _ are you okay? _

The Gryffindor chaser misses spectacularly, and when the announcer roars his approval I hear it, along with the answering jeers from the other side of the stadium. I am once again where I should be, though the chill remains, the feeling that I’m not getting enough air. I give Alana a weak smile, nod. 

“It’s just loud,” I say, though there’s no way she can hear me. She nods back like she understands, concern wrinkling her brow.

“We can leave, if—”

I shake off the words before she finishes, show her I’m fine, but lean against her side once in silent thanks.

On our way back to the castle, we walk at the end of the throng of people; we’re mostly surrounded by gloomy stragglers in red and gold. Alana rushed out as soon as the seats began to empty, off to congratulate Bev, and Jimmy is still collecting on his bets, so I walk side by side with Brian at a meandering pace until they catch up.

I don’t know what to say, and this silence is the uncomfortable kind, so I look up, at the clear, starry sky, at the dark shadow of the castle ahead. Ribbons of moonlight shroud the towers, and I wonder if I could see my window in Ravenclaw tower, if the yellow glow of lantern would be visible within. Maybe, I frown, I would only see a faint and flickering silver.

“Hey, uh,” Brian says, and I wince, try to turn it into a smile before I face him. “I think I owe you an apology.”

The wince stretches further, if only inside.

“You don’t, I mean, there’s nothing—”

“No,” he stops me, and he’s not meeting my eyes, “I really, I was kind of a dick. When…”

The pause lengthens as, once again, someone comes up against the wall that is our missing weeks.

“Anyway,” he continues gruffly, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you guys had going on, but the girls seem to think it was pretty rough.”

I’m torn between amusement and irritation at the thought that they’ve talked about us like this.

“...And I hope it’s not because of me that he didn’t come tonight.”

I stop, my feet crunching on the frost-gilded grass beneath us. It catches me by surprise, hadn’t even occurred to me that he would think that.  _ Normalcy _ , I remind myself,  _ that would be a logical conclusion _ . Not absent because he can’t stand crowds, that what was once just a mild distaste has sprouted into an ugly clutch of fear when there’s no clear avenue of exit, of  _ escape _ . Not because, even for me, the whole night was baffling, unreal in its existence and my ability to be a part of it, and for Hannibal would have been a constant pull to let his guard down, to trust that we are safe and let himself be carried into the simple joy of cheering for a team. Impossible.

“No, it’s not—it’s just really not his thing,” I assure, offer a smile that is a tad sheepish and completely real. A tension eases from Brian’s shoulders, and he nods, looks down.

“Cool.”

The pause lengthens, neither of us sure what to add.

“... So, uh, how bout that game?” I ask with a grin, and his laugh comes out as a huff of cloud.

The curtains are drawn on my bed when I get back, but Hannibal is not sleeping. Noise from the common room below is muffled in here, but will continue for some time yet if Bev’s raucous attitude is anything to go by. Her cheeks were pinked the way they get when she’s had a little to drink, though I hadn’t seen anything being passed around. I wondered, as I’d said goodnight, if it had anything to do with the congratulations she’d gotten from Alana.

“I assume it was a Ravenclaw victory,” Hannibal says, eyes not leaving the textbook in his lap. I toe off my shoes, pull my sweater over my head and flop onto the mattress beside him.

“Good guess,” I snark, grinning. The sheets are warm with him, and I sling an arm around his waist, bury my face against his side. He smells like familiar soap and spice, and makes a mild noise of discontent when my chilly hand finds the skin beneath his shirt.

“Brian asked me if you were mad at him,” I mumble against him, already sleepy, and he laughs quietly. I feel it rumble in his chest and it causes a small shiver that I am too slow to hide.

“What drew him to that conclusion?”

“Mm. He felt guilty, I think, for avoiding me while you were on house arrest.”

I yawn, and his hand finds my hair, strokes once through it before resting heavily around me. The pages in his lap continue to turn through the next stretch of companionable silence.

It feels charged, a little. I want him to touch me, more than the comfortable contact we’ve eased into, but I’m afraid to voice it. Mason’s marks have mostly faded from his skin, with one glaring exception, but I think we both see them still.

The page has not turned in some time, I realize, and I hope he’s not aware of the direction my thoughts have taken. I nuzzle against him once, guilty, and roll onto my back.

Affection has been frequent since we returned, more, on occasion. Once, on our way to Divination, he caught me suddenly, pulled me into a dark alcove behind a tapestry and into a dizzying press of lips. His tongue pushed into my mouth, cold stone at my back, our books dropping to the floor, and I moaned against it, surprised. Lips and teeth, his hands rough at my waist, crushing me to him, I could barely think, and _ touch,  _ god, touch after so long felt like flame. He’d growled, pleased, when I’d gasped his name, delirious pleasure, I tangled hands in his hair as he mouthed under my jaw—

And then, he was still. Pulling back slowly, apology in his eyes, and something else.

“We’ll be late,” he explained, pressed a softer kiss to my still parted lips. 

_ Fuck divination, _ I thought at first, but only nodded, bit my lip, knowing it had nothing to do with punctuality.

“Just—just give me a second,” I’d laughed through trying to catch my breath. Tried to focus on not looking like I’d just been seconds away from the world’s most embarrassingly quick climax.

“Will,” he says now, drawing me back to the warm comfort of the dormitory. I realize I had been drifting somewhere near sleep.

“Mhm?” I acknowledge drowsily.

There’s a pause, and I try to drag my mind back from dream’s edge long enough to decipher it. I fail.

“...will you put out the light?” he asks finally. His voice is soft, near my ear as he settles beside me, tangles his legs with mine beneath the covers. I press my lips to the clean, warm scent of his hair, and make another noncommittal noise, but I do. I reach for the nightstand, and then I pull the curtains closed.


	33. Chapter 33

**Hannibal |** Small Highs

* * *

 

In the whispering quiet of walls, silence washes over me like a draught. Welcome, yes, so welcome, but unnerving all at once as my ears strain against the absence of sound, unconvinced the noise has abated organically around me and not been stolen away instead, a sense lifted without my knowledge, taken from me without realization.

But I am fixating, I know, at once convinced I have gone deaf, but then stiffening, displeased, as the hush of wind against the glass creates cacophony, and the far sounds of triumph or defeat, rend too loud against my skin. When I have the sound, I crave the emptiness, when I have the emptiness, I crave the noise. Nothing pleases me. I should be stretched out, relieved, glorying in my sudden dominion over the tower. Over the castle itself. They are all out there in their sickening wave, in their masses of shouting and cackling, pressed into dirty seats, crammed into each other, trapp-

Fixating.

I shift, pull back the hangings of Will’s bed, of  _ our  _ bed truly, because I do not believe I have been back to my dormitory since I deposited my things there the first night and turned on my heel, a queasy unsettled sensation in my stomach, the greenish stilted light pervading, the cold sharp edges that I usually admire, interjecting into the air, suddenly too reminiscent of other darkened rooms. It is a dungeon. Perhaps, they should not have allowed students to habitate in dungeons in the first place. Were the founders not supposed to be brilliant? Or was this some other fool’s mistake. 

But Ravenclaw, on the other hand, is nothing but air and light, light now, as I push away the blue and the sun seeps in, warm through the glass, though I know outside the air is brisk and crackles with the snap of Autumn. I admire this breath, the beauty of decline in the trees, the symphony of color and the slow song of the dying time, orchards and the thin scent of smoke that clings. Summer only glares in my memory, blaring in ugly rays and distance, Spring seems too pleased with itself, much like everyone around me, too perfectly happy and lovely, and Winter. No, to winter. Of all the times it could be, Autumn placates my general desires, integrates itself seamlessly around me as Will wraps himself up in sweaters and twines our hands, comes to me pink cheeked and wind swept, and I wish to kiss him and don’t. Despite all of that, I am glad the sun and the fire keep away the chills. I have whispered the fire higher now that I am on my own, a habit I had begun and abruptly ended at the grumblings of those around me. Another time, I might have insisted, but it was Will who opened his mouth to fight, and me who silenced him with a touch. An entertaining turn of events, I considered, and wished to kiss him, and didn’t. In the end though,  _ Their  _ space, more than mine. Constant reminders. But soon not my space at all, if someone finds out I haven’t spent even a singular night in my own bed. 

Alone, I do as I wish, reach for my wand, and wave at it to watch it spark. A quiet murmur of words.

_ Incendio _

A simple spell. A first year spell. But after months of not casting, even that prickles satisfaction through me, momentarily makes elation flush my cells, before the power fades again, the magic gone, and it is only me.

Small highs and I am always searching.

I cast it again to have it tremble through me. And consider for a moment trying once more, trying  _ the other spell _ . But much as the success pleases me, the failure drags me deeper. It is advanced, I know. But not so advanced, not so advanced that I should be unable to do it. I, I—who  _ once  _ melted a face with my mind, who could, if I tried, if I pushed myself to  _ that  _ place, shatter every glass in the room, throw all the pillows to the floor.  _ Once.  _ I think for a stuttering second of the names and somewhere deep inside of me, the monster peeks an eye, stirs to life. 

_ You would never have to feel like this again. _ He reminds me. This strange limbo that I am in, not anger, not happiness, not sadness, only panic and neutrality, a manic sense of helplessness, all tucked neatly beneath the illusion of normalcy that I can craft so well, and the occasional want to kiss him, which overwhelms everything else, and almost makes me forget. 

Almost. Until he reaches back, only wanting, unknowing, and—

And so I don’t.

The anger could cure it. The names, the potential in them, the potential for me. 

But not for us. 

I curve myself down onto our pillows, onto his bed, that is my bed, that he offers me, that he allows me to inhabit. Allows me to insist on this particularity or that and never questions. 

He could cure it too, but I don’t allow him. Cannot form the words that I cannot even think to myself.  _ I have just been, sometimes I, the control, it seems to, when you reach back for me, everything races all wrong— _

But it will be fine. I do not need rage to right me, nor peace. I do not need anything, I will overcome it and I will return to whatever state it is that I am aiming to be in, which I cannot recall just at this moment, and everything will settle. 

I need to not think about it, frustrated noises into the air.

The thoughts cramp into the tower, take up every bit of the space that the students have left behind and press against me. No matter how I wish to escape them, to clear them away, to find blissful emptiness  _ somewhere. _ They take up physical matter along me, sit on the bed, laugh on the armchair, twine around the flames. They are everywhere and they steal my breath and they press and they press and they press.

Press like kisses along my spine, press like the brand that sits embedded, press like the sound of Will’s whimpers as he begs me to allow him back in. Press like my fingers reaching inadvertently for a wand forbidden.

_ Pressandpressandpress. _

Sometimes I am truly certain I am going mad, and now I have infected my own quiet space, unable to conquer it even where there is only me, because the truth I won’t speak is that it is not the fire, it is not the snores.

It is not the sharing of space, or the accidentalbrushagainstmyrobes, too close, ashoulderagainstme, too close,

it is only—

  
  
  
  
  
  


I have taken myself out of the room, past the fluttering silks and out into the empty hallways before I realize I’ve all but fled. An arching growl threatening to rip from my throat, as I reign myself in and force a halt to my steps. 

I need to think of something else.

The quiet licking of anger and the twist of frustration ache through me, I can’t scream, but the sensations need to go, need to leave me, I must push and wring them out and have them quieted again by the time everyone surrounds me once more. Or, or. I simply must.

My brain designs, my feet lift me, and my body goes. 

I do not believe anyone has ever said I make good decisions when left to my own devices. But in this moment, the hunger for something to latch onto is too much to resist. And in truth, I have been waiting for a moment for this, a moment without Will, a moment on my own. It is only moved up by my feral want suddenly for a fight I can manage. That is safe, but no less fierce. The need sings through me.

I leave it to fate if he is there or not.

But he is, sitting at his desk, quill scratching at a long roll of parchment when I round the corner, enter through the open door without knocking.

“Can I help you, Mr. Lecter.” Jack says without looking up, which aggravates the strain of my nerves higher, but serves to burn the antagonism brighter, molten in me.  _ Searing.  _ The word leaves a bad taste in my mouth which instead I push into crossing my arms.

“Based on prior history, I would say that chances that you are capable of that are highly unlikely,” I pause, when he doesn’t stop, purses his lips but continues on with his scratching, the sound grinding, continuous and repetitive. “Jack.”

At that he does pause, shifts his head to middle distance for a beat, before turning his impassive face up at me. “I suggest,” And his suggestion drips distaste, “you take a moment, Lecter, and decide what it is exactly you came here for. And if it’s for something you shouldn’t be looking, take yourself right back out of this room, out to the pitch where you should be, and we’ll pretend this never happened.” 

“We  _ have  _ become terribly good at pretending that.” I say by way of reply, ignoring him, strolling myself further into the room, because here, I can loose the irritation, channel the helplessness into snap of action, and not precisely concern myself where it strikes. There is too much built up in me, I need this, my whole body pulls me towards it. “So why do we not try this on.”

He is looking at me now, that hard face, the lines that all form to say  _ freak.  _ And that is precisely what I want. My hands are not bound here.

“Will and I, as you might have heard, embarked on a terrifically lovely camping trip.” I smile at him all teeth as I prowl closer. “My singular joy in life, I’m sure you’re aware, camping.” The stone sits unmoving, but his blink is a hair too slow, the beats of his heart quickening, I can scent the annoyance in the air, mixed with his own desire to deny. 

Well, Jack, we can only run so long. 

If we shoulder this, I have no hesitations to give him his own role.

“And the most fascinating of manifestations occurred to us there. Do you know what it was, Jack?” A tilt of my head, blinking. There is a freedom in cold anger, not the kind of twisting emotional rage that I have been so subjected to, but clean, clear, icy want for destruction. 

A breath, the pause stretching as he decides if he’ll play my game and in the end, flippant, but all the same, a move made on our board, because he wants no less than I to show me what the proper place for me is. 

“No, Hannibal.” There’s sarcasm heavy. “No, I can’t say that I do. But by all means, enlighten me.”

Smile wider. “A talking pig, it always astounds me what magic is capable of, wouldn’t you agree?” I’ve paused in front of his desk, make him look up at me, unless he wants to stand too, though I’m almost as tall as he is, a few more inches, one day I will dwarf him. “And though you may not have met one, talking pigs find silence particularly difficult to achieve.” 

I summon the image of the vial in Mason’s hands, of my memory there, dangling, carefully cut out everything else in the scene around it, remove the vicious edges, the tired exhaustion, remove me altogether. But project the bottle at him as loud as I can, drop my walls and push it towards his mind as he winces back. 

“It is good to know you are so careful with evidence.” My tone drops to a hiss, stark, the humor drifting away, cast far into the wind. “To know that my innermost thoughts are safe in ministry hands along with the rest of what it controls.” I’m leaning down, leaning in. “I wonder what  _ else _ Mason could have accomplished if he’d set his mind to it.” 

The words ebb into silence before I pick the threads up again.

“A blessing, wouldn’t you say? That it didn’t go beyond a stolen memory on your watch. That he managed to set his mind to dust like that, so tragically, but perhaps just in time. Or maybe, ” I accuse though I know it’s untruth. “you wouldn’t. A nice rotten little pile of gold waiting for you in some unmarked vault, somewhere.”

“I  _ didn’t  _ know.” He interjects, as my lip curls, his silence broken. Admission. “I didn’t know, Hannibal. I couldn’t have known and I didn’t.” And who is it that he is attempting to convince. “I was only thinking of—”

“You did.” I disagree. “You knew, or you felt, but it was only me, and so it wasn’t enough. You would  _ never. _ ” It comes out a little more bitterly than I intended, though I don’t care. “ _ Never. _ Have allowed Will to go with him on his own, you would never have done that.”

He doesn’t deny. 

“And in the end,  _ Jack _ . Mason understood what you couldn’t, and I sincerely wish that you learn it and soon. Because it will not end well for you to continue to deny it, to continue to attempt to pull him away.” He doesn’t ask me if I am threatening him, there’s no point in it. “But there will be no pulling him away. You can’t  _ save  _ him. He’s chosen, I’ve chosen. There’s no one left that needs saving.”

My hands clatter to the wood of the desk. 

“In your heart of hearts, you hoped I would end up in a prison, or you hoped Mason would take me, that you could bring an end to it. But despite everything you thought, you only cost Will.” 

_ Because I, of course, am fine.  _

“And you will not  _ ever  _ be able to understand that.” 

To know what it was like hear his broken cries and be forced to stand impassive, to lock him out by force and taste the anguish. To think. To think in those terrible moments between waking and sleeping, that you were going to die in that place, that you would not get to see him laugh, to see him happy, to see him whole, ever again.

That you would lose him, despite everything, in the end. 

I look at him, my eyes dark, the cold twisting through my body, and for a moment, he is frightened, senses the tear of claw, the drops of blood spurting from his neck. 

He smiles at me. 

“I would.” He shakes his head. “I would put an end to it if I could.” The rough edge of a snarl from my lips. “But I don’t think you’ll need me to help with that, Hannibal. I think you’ll end up right where you belong just fine all on your own.” His eyes are cold though he smiles. “But you’re right, there seems to be a kickback if I try to do it for you. So I won’t.”

His eyes are on mine, a hunter’s eyes. But he doesn’t intimidate me. 

“But you don’t get to be the only influence in his life. You never will be. And sooner or later—” 

He leaves the thought hanging and I only peer down at him, arrange the walls again, brick by brick, nothing more to say. Staring as the fight quiets with the words I’ve allowed to escape, breaths ratcheting and then slowing slowly down again as we glare at each other.

“He’s different now.” 

I say finally, my voice almost normal again, all of me almost normal again, the rough burst of aggression a balm on my nerves, as I hoped it would be. Small highs, but I am always searching. I feel heady for the moment, as in control as I’ve been in days.  “He can be of help to you.” A derisive snort, “In your crusade for  _ good _ —” A pause. “Or perhaps only just glory.”

I push myself further, pleased at this sudden swing of my moods, brace my arms against the desk to crowd over him. 

“But if he you take his mind and you use it without his body stepping into this classroom of his own desires. If he doesn’t come to you asking to help.” My voice drops to a whisper. “It will be the final time and not a single one of your influences will make any difference.”

And then I am gone, whirled out in something akin to elation. 

It lasts me up the walk back to Ravenclaw, lasts me as I open up a textbook and finally am able to immerse myself in some of the words, cross legged, lasts me until the sounds of crowds return and the first lurch of unease fills me, until Will has dropped to the bed around me, a casual hand which is soothing around my waist, the chill of his touch which is thrilling. My fingers find his hair, and a sort of ease washes over me, the exact ease I couldn’t locate on my own, the eluded me on this bed without him. That drove me to find other sorts of it as an addict might. I should be troubled by how much I need him, but of all the things I am troubled by, that is not even remotely on the list. I twine through a curl, yank just a little, to see him blearily grin up at me as we exchange some words.  _ Easy words.  _

And then a weight. 

The heaviness of sudden palpable desire. Desire that should be simple.

Will’s skin screaming for my touch. Another time, another place, one more shot of adrenaline to the brain, a little less thinking, and I might have—  _ God,  _ I wish to touch him. I think about it. Consider, attempt to recapture the bravery that I had had hours ago and the snarl and the ease, to redirect but it is gone.

But I could.

I could.

I could.

Tell him.

I open my lips.

Kiss him.

“ _ Will you put out the light?” _

It doesn’t last me long enough.

Our lips meet in brief, a kiss goodnight, a comfortable habit, the warmth of him against me, the soothing touch. 

And then.

He pushes a little, unconscious,  leans into me, makes it longer than normal by less than a breath, but. 

The buzzing starts in my head. 

_ Sorry.  _

I whisper without explaining exactly what I’m apologizing for, end it, but don’t turn away as I might have once, press my face into his neck instead, his tired arms curving sleepily around me and I cling back against him. Because he cannot even leave me for a stretch of hours before my brain maddens.

And in his presence, I recall the only truth I have, that I do not wish to be maddened, nor furious, nor vengeful, I only wish to be myself again. 

I wish to kiss him. 

More than anything.

_ S’ok. _

In the last moments, Jack’s words twist around on me. 

_ Sooner or later.  _

_ \-- _

Somewhere in the night, my eyes flutter open, sleep drifting out of reach. 

We’re tangled together. In the half wake of my mind, I cannot tell where I end and he begins. 

Blurred. Our minds ceasing their separateness without our conscious control.

I murmur wordlessly into our bond. What I would never think in sunlight, an acknowledgment of struggle.The problem.

_ Me.  _

He does not have to be awake to reach back. 


	34. Chapter 34

**Will |** Fighting Words

* * *

 

Hannibal is unlike anyone else, so when the pale graying of the sky touches him, it follows paths you couldn’t predict or anticipate if you tried. I lay beside him as the day begins and watch as light floods the plane of his cheek, lines his mouth. His breath comes soft, even, no nightmares for now, not while I’m twined comfortably with him, and finally, dawn brushes his eyes. Bleary blinks, then a smile, just for me, before the weight of the day sets in; the smile that I was waiting for.

“Good morning,” he murmurs, voice rough.

“Good morning,” I agree. We still have a few moments before the cacophony of my roommates waking begins, and so I lean sleepily against his neck, stretch against the touch of his palm as he smooths it down my back.

We have coffee in the hall with the others, I stuff my face with biscuits and gravy (not as good as Memaw’s, but close) and Bev laughs that it’s a wonder I manage to keep my figure.

“What figure; stick?” Jimmy teases, and I flush. Hannibal’s hand finds my knee under the table, and I smile at him—he doesn’t seem to mind my lankiness anyway. His touch dances away just as quickly, leaving my skin cold where it was. Talk goes on.

The windows are fogged in the warm, drowsy classroom where I copy a Rune chart off a cracked and aging chalkboard. The professor’s words appear as she speaks, the chalk scratching on without her. A cold, sleety rain hammers the windows, and I yawn, wonder how I will make it through Divination—even warmer and more boring—next period. At least Hannibal will be at the desk next to me, squinting at dregs of tea and complaining that we’re even still taking this class.

I smile. Try to focus again on the scrawl of notes, the teacher’s voice. 

Something twangs discordant against my awareness.

“—completely unstable. They shouldn’t have allowed him back into a classroom, if you ask me.”

The whisper comes from behind me, two seats to the left, and my quill stills. The rain taps on the window like a thing alive, trying to get in.

"—a freak. And his boyfriend too, they both—”

They become simultaneously aware of me, and I spare a glance over my shoulder. Two pairs of eyes suddenly diligently scanning their notes, two pairs of hunched shoulders and busily scribbling hands.

“Mr. Graham?” the professor’s voice is sharp. “Perhaps you’d be so kind as to give us the correct translation of ‘Uruz’ in the given context?”

I try to tune out the hushed guffaws behind me, cheeks hot, as I tear through my notes for answers.

But it stings. I keep turning it over in my head to figure out why, and all I can think is that it’s  _ unfair _ , it’s so fucking unfair that, after what we’ve been through, Hannibal should also have to deal with idiotic whisperings. Unfair that anyone would make it harder on him to fit back in than it has to be. I’m seething through the remaining minutes of class as they drag by, and by the time we’re dismissed, I’m sullenly slamming my books into my bag, to the chorus of more snickers.

And then.

A buzzing in my ears, as we filter down the hall.

“Hey,” it’s quiet, I don’t want to draw attention, but it’s sharp, and the taller of the two turns around. There’s no apology, no embarrassment in his features, just a haughty challenge.

“I think you need to be more careful what you spread around,” I fairly growl. It flickers with threat, and I breathe carefully through my nose, remembering Mason, his laugh.

His silence.

The other one— _Franklyn_ my mind supplies—the Hufflepuff with floppy hair and a mouth that looks like it’s trembling between a smile and a frown, pulls on his friend’s arm, but the tall Slytherin isn’t having it.

“Why?” he demands, looking down his nose at me. He’d almost be handsome, but for that sneer, and his eyes, which are unnaturally round.  _ Like a fish _ , I think. “Because I might offend a couple of freaks? Please.”

“Apologize.” It’s a demand, not a request. I hear my own voice distantly, the low, strange sound that I first think belongs in someone else’s mouth. Until I feel the anger singing through my veins. It’s reaching a boiling point, only part of it caused by him, but pleased to have a target. He scoffs, crosses his arms,

“Listen, I don’t know what went on between you two and Mason Verger, but I heard your whore boyfriend freaked out on a kid in the hallway just for saying the name.”

_ Dangerous _ .

“Tobias, come on—”

“Does he miss him? Is that it? Did they have a lover’s spat?”

Ears ringing with it, my fists clench. I’m not sure what I want, but I want it so bad my teeth hurt. The anger roiling, foaming against a dark and distant shore, and it’s easier to let it than to examine what's just beneath. He’s prodding. He wants to provoke me, I know, but knowing it doesn’t stop—

“Did you both fuck him, or just—”

Magic forgotten, I lunge for him. 

My fist catches his chin and it’s the most satisfaction I’ve felt in weeks. He kicks, scratches, a foot slams against my stomach and he tries to scrabble for his wand while I’m doubled over, gasping. Another blow staggers me, rings a strange and muffled sound into my ears, and I taste blood, but then I’m pushing back, a growl that doesn’t sound quite human. He’s caught off guard, lands on the cobbles hard beneath me, and I rain fists on him, feeling my knuckles split. It feels good. It feels too good, and for a second it’s Mason’s face squinting stupidly up at me, and I’m really going to kill him this time. In my mind he laughs, and I want to hit him until he’s unrecognizable, only so much meat and a fine tie.

There’s yelling behind me, maybe his friend, maybe not, and then I’m airborne, still lashing out blindly. There’s a fist in my collar, yanking, and it’s Jack, he’s yelling for Tobias to go to class before he gets detention too. He's pulled me away and we’re rounding the corner to his office. He tosses me bodily in, closes the door behind him, and I’m still smoke and flame, chest heaving, eyes burning.

Jack turns a very cold look on me.

“What the  _ hell _ was that?”

I don’t have a coherent answer, I realize, just an ache in my chest and a more real one in my hands.

“Like you care," I accuse, and it comes out somewhat quieter than the shout I’d meant it to, just a sour twist of sound. He narrows his eyes; I'm pushing my luck here, but I can't care about that, can only think of the pauses when there shouldn't be pauses and the flickering of mistrust. 

"You let him get to us.”

Accusation. It sates the unnamed craving, for a second, sits thick on my tongue.

Jack's face doesn’t change from the stone it’s set in, but he steps toward me. I feel sick. I throw my hands out,  _ shove _ , feel the magic that snaps through me. He still barely stumbles. 

“You fucking  _ put _ us in his path!”

My throat scrapes raw, and he doesn’t react to the push as I thought he would; there’s no snap back, only a pause. And then, to my utter astonishment, he says coldly,

“ _ Hannibal _ put you in his path.”

A sound that’s half laugh, half snarl leaves me, and I could kill him. I could, I might. In this moment, I'm not sure what I might do, the constant, drifting feeling of unreality tearing me from myself, blurring everything. An angry scream is stuck somewhere deep, there are hot streaks of tears along my cheeks. I wipe them away, frustrated, and it leaves a sticky trail of blood in their place. 

Jack sighs, sinks against the desk.

“But you’re right. I let it happen.”

He looks very old. I still hate him, but some of the anger flickers and fades, and when it does I mostly just feel tired. Drained. I hate him for that too, for the thick, viscous guilt that fills him. For not even letting me have this, this momentary placement of blame. I need to hate _someone_ right now and, somehow, there's only me.

“I pushed you before you were ready. I knew he would catch, but I lit the fuse. I just wanted—”

My hands unclench at my sides. We eye each other, me with my swirl of anger and he with his solemn, far-away gaze. He wants to ask something, but he doesn’t.

“Go to class,” he says finally, rounds his desk to sit heavily into his chair. I note that he doesn’t apologize.

When I get to Divination, late, Hannibal notices my split lip, but doesn’t mention it. His hand does, however, graze mine once as we study our cups, where it rests against the table, and later, he smooths a thumb over the cut, murmurs the right words to make it knit back together before laying a kiss softly over the still tender place where it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We were so, so distraught to hear about Alan Rickman's passing this morning. He was an amazing actor and a vital part of the Harry Potter universe, and thus, a heavy influence on the creation of this story. We'll miss him, always.


	35. Chapter 35

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

“Lecter, we’re walking.”

And one does not protest at such an order, so I roll up the essay I am working on, tuck it into my bag and rise dutifully, though Will’s eyes flicker over me, uneasy for a moment. Half of me wants to laugh, a very unpleasant, desperate sort of laugh, am I really so diminished that he cannot believe I am capable of walking with Bev alone for a time? The other part of me is only sickened. The knowledge that in so many ways I am. That the length of that time is on an hourglass, and no sooner do we part, does the sand begin to fall. She is warmth too, comfort of a sort, but there is no guarantee that it will be enough, if some unintentional variable crosses into my space, something in my path ringing wrong without warning, and all the seams of the quiet afternoon, cozy in the lamplight, unravelling.

She’s unsmiling. Alana from her armchair, watches too, the same concern that is unsuccessfully hidden across Will’s face, a little better tucked away by the soft smile she fixes me with when she catches me looking. Bev has already marched out of the Hufflepuff rooms into the hallway though and so I smile back, my fingers curving around Will’s arm for a moment, all my things left with him to take back to our burrow if necessary, and follow.

We are silent for a time.

We have not been alone since that distant evening before the trial. Her viciously well timed words, my own momentary blaze, as ever, bright in my memory, a clutch for balance when all hope was lost. The two of us, lost together, against a world that seems simultaneously far more vast and far more compressed than it does now. At the very least, I feel older. Then, I had been ready to surrender, but now... It is all different now.

 _Would it have been better?_ I think into the void around us as we make our way slowly out the castle, to walk along the edges of the trees, dusk already heavy in the air, the slowly emptying branches shifting against the grey blue sky. _If I had just gone. If I had left them to carry on instead of dragging us all further into this twine. A trial as we had expected, a clean break, and not this..._  I shiver and a Ravenclaw scarf is around me in moments, looped by quick hand, I do not bother to remind her she ought to have allowed me to at least inquire if she was cold first. I have a jacket as well, after all.

_Fragility._

Like the wavering branches as their plumes drift to the cold earth, join the dirt in a crush of dust.

 _Pain reminds you to keep fighting._ She had said, all those days ago. But this is not pain, not exactly, but the incorrect configuration of cells, an unstable body where there was once steel. The jumping of atoms incapable of stilling in the right place. I do not know how to explain and I do not wish to acknowledge it, so I push it away, and hope it will not return.

“He got into a fight.” She murmurs finally, hands dug into her pockets, I know they are clenched into fists there. Her voice isn’t in the trademark Bev fury that has been turned on me time and time again, nor in the disappointed coldness I have tasted only once and sworn never to again, but in this strained anxious cadence that rings familiar in my mind. A helpless ache. Pausing as my eyes flicker onto her, not yet committing to one response or another and wait.

In the silence between us, her chin cast down to the grass where her worn sneaker is digging a hole in the mud, an owl hoots quietly, the mournful melody resonating around us, through the caverns of the trees.

The stars grow brighter in the sky.

“I know.”

Finally, when she doesn’t answer.

“He was—” _defending me._ The words can’t quite make it out of my mouth and she nods.

“I’m freaking out Alana.”

Up close, away from the orangey glow of torches in the Hufflepuff common room, away from the pinking of her cheeks, and the triumph of a victory. In her ripped jeans and thin jacket, she looks unusually small. Wan in the moonlight, as washed out as I feel.

“She’s been a real rock to my mess, but I’m freaking her out, have been since—” Her voice whispers out and then in again. “You took yourself away.”

It’s not accusatory, simple truth, though it bears heaviness in me now, seems so unbelievable, that I had been so willing to leave, so able to put my stubbornness before—everything. Will, her, this.

“And then I was sure we’d lose you, and then you _were_ gone, and he was gone. And,” Her eyes finally find mine, the breeze blowing against my cheeks, “I can’t talk to her about this.” A determined shake of her head. “I’ve put enough on her shoulders, and I can’t talk to _him_ about this, not like this, not exactly. He’ll need me to be myself, to be objective, to be _okay._ Because you’re—” She pauses at precipice of the words, but soldiers on, says it the insulting way,

“Not. And he won’t be able to talk about it if he’s worried about me too.”

I amend my view of the world we’ve returned to in those seconds. Amend my belief that we have gone and changed and nothing had shifted. Find in wonder, what I have known, but even still could not see, that we are a part of something, that we are rooted in something.

In a life.

A part of a whole. When wrenched, altered.

It is an astounding thought to me. Revelatory. And for a moment, I am on a path with direction again, with the promise of a _future._

My fingers around it, almost, but it fades and I am stuck again. We are stuck. Together. Searching for a way forward.

“I was so fucking scared.” Her laugh is hoarse in the silence, wavers up into the sky, fairy lights glimmer in the forest. “Can you imagine?”  

The silent beats between her words of disbelieving, _me. I’m fearless. It’s not me who’s supposed to be scared._ The rattling realizations of truths once unknown.

Rhetorical irony. But as she squints her gaze against tears, I nod.

“I believe I can.”

She rolls her eyes and laughs low. “He was supposed to owl after the trial. He was _supposed_ to let me know. And I think, you’re busy, you’re stressed, you’re relieved, soon. Another hour, soon, bed, in the morning, then.  But _nothing,_ Hannibal. _Nothing._ For three weeks, I get up in the morning, I go to class, I go to practice. But all I can think of is that my best friends have disappeared off the face of the earth. And no one will tell me where they’ve gone, and no one except some dumb Slytherin will even acknowledge that you’re not just on some fucking vacation.”

Fond amusement fills me for a moment and my lips curls. “I suppose that is why Krendler has been sporting that rather charming eyepatch and refuses to so much as breathe in our presence.”

She is unrepentant, fierce again, for a beat, and I remember why it is I love her.

“ _They won’t be coming back.”_ Her voice sing songs in an unpleasant breathy imitation. “He’s lucky I didn’t get the other one too. But he wouldn’t spill, just kept fucking cackling. After a week’s worth of detentions, I decided he didn’t really know anything, that in his moronic way he just thought it would be funny to watch me flip out.”

I force the shudder down with effort. The sudden undesirable notion that Mason had _told_ people what he was planning to do creeping up higher and nauseatingly higher.

“And Fucking Crawford.” A sentiment I can agree with, reach for to distract myself from the former, though the thought continues to lurk uneasy. “ _I can’t tell you anything I don’t know, Miss Katz._ _When there is something I can tell you, I’ve told you, I will. Now_ _I suggest you focus on what you should be doing_. As though there was anything I could fucking do but think about—”

Panic whirls through her breaths, whirls through me.

“Fuck.” She swears again, and I debate asking her curiously if it actually helps, though I do not believe I could make my lips form the sounds. If it tempers the helplessness in some way, the construction of those syllables. Perhaps she can teach me.

And then quieter.

“I thought you were dead. I couldn’t tell Alana that, and if I couldn’t tell her, I couldn’t tell anyone.” Her fists clench by her sides. “But she was so hopeful, every day, so bright, but every day, a little less. I couldn’t tell her that I was giving up, that I was mourning you already, because _god_ , I couldn’t fucking take hoping if it wasn’t true.” Raw edges of words. “Though I think the nights I crawled into bed with her and just stared at the ceiling weren’t exactly inspiring. But I was. I thought—”

She cuts off, and struggles in a shaking breath.

“I thought that I would never see you again. That you were gone.”

She says it for the first time aloud and it escapes her mouth and weighs her shoulders, she gives voice to the words, and they choke her.

And I to her, admit.

In a steadiness I do not feel, but her anguish pushes me towards.

“I believed so too.”

The first honest word we’ve exchanged about the time, but I owe her, in this moment, truth. Not the false story about camping that she doesn’t believe, not a forced smile and an exhalation of _fine._ The understanding, instead, that we did not willingly leave her to this. A reality that I have barely acknowledged at all. _Couldn’t_ there, and here.

We did not cast her into this desperation by choice.

Did not.

Steal away her control callously.

I do not believe I could bear it, if she thought that.

She looks up at me, I look down at her, shock widens her gaze for a moment, a snap of something, a soft noise in the back of her throat, that holds all the tears unshed, trembling through her.

“Some part of you both _is_ gone.”

She’s stepped into my space suddenly,  I struggle not to step back. Understanding suddenly, knowledge that was there in pieces coalescing.

“He’s fighting.” She repeats. “And he’s angry and the way he watches you sometimes, Hannibal, like he thinks you’re going to vanish if he so much as blinks. Puts himself between you and the door. Surrounds you.”

I blink and say nothing.

“And you, you’re—”

“And me?”

Her smile is sad, a shaking hand up to my cheek. I flinch, harder than I can disguise, as my body processes _foreign encroachment_ even as my brain processes _Bev._ She knows, I think, but trusts me not to lash out, not to hurt her, though I could, keeps her hand there, small and calloused on my cheek. I wonder how we must look, me ridiculous in her scarf, haunted and haunting, her disheveled and determined and afraid, but not of me.

For me.

“A little different.” She murmurs. “But you’ve always been a little different.”

She takes a deep breath, still touching me, her skin is cold from the wind, our bodies cold, our blood cold.

“He took you.”

She doesn’t repeat the name, a newfound trigger, and she doesn’t form it as a question, but waits all the same. And I nod beneath her touch.

“And he hurt you.”

My lips part to draw breath, but not to speak, a stray hair falling across my face. I feel numb. Paralyzed against her.

I nod again.

Allow her to finish, a step into me, closer, fingers caressing my face, along the lines of my jaw as though she has never seen me before and she is trying to learn the paths of me, to find something that has gone missing.

Perhaps we are, meeting here, now, for some kind of first time.

“Badly.” The words stick in her throat. “And he hurt you, badly.”

I can’t quite meet her eyes then, avert them to the side with my cheek, but her fingers dart up to tuck away the hair, and the helplessness sings through us both.

I cannot yet admit to that, not to myself and not to her, not about Mason, not about the dungeon, not about the culmination of many things that have washed across me over the last span of time, snatching into me, pulling more away, bit by bit, that I cannot seem to overcome.

So I do not speak and I do not nod, only unfold my arms and reach out, pull her close, her breath exhaling relief, my arms solid at least, if no other part of me is, remind us both that whatever wraps around us, we are here. The vulnerability lingering in the brain, but the physical at least, righted.

“I’m glad you’re back.”

Her tears are wet against my chest.

“Parts and all.”


	36. Chapter 36

**Will**

* * *

He stands in the empty dormitory, and at first I’m confused, not totally sure I haven’t walked in on something indelicate. His bare torso is facing me, his shirt discarded with an uncharacteristic lack of care on the ground, as if it was torn off in a great hurry, but then I see he’s twisting, hand on his opposite shoulder, back arched. He’s trying to look behind him, at the reflection in the full-length mirror that hangs from the stone wall.

And then, a heavy and awful weight settling in my chest, I understand.

I close the door loudly enough to hear, not so much as to startle him. His head snaps up, out of his strange contortions, and for a moment there is a glimmer of… fear? That’s not quite it. Fear is what wakes him—and me—in the night, clutching, dries my mouth with the memory of pain. This is more… embarrassment almost. Fear, yes, but only of discovery.

He makes a soft noise in his throat, swallows once.

“I was…”

I smile easily enough, despite the sadness hollowing my stomach, the anxious current beneath, always, whenever someone says the name in passing, whenever Hannibal shifts in sudden discomfort, squirms in his seat until his shirt no longer rests against dip of his spine. I settle my mind with breath, so that even there is no trace of instability for him to sense, walk across to my bed and lay my bag down. I leave my back to him for now, so he can construct whatever he feels he needs to.

He laughs softly, almost a scoff, and from the corner of my eye, I see his hands fall helplessly to his sides.

“I was trying to see it.”

No comfort of lies then, this time. For the best.

I face him, and it is a sharp agony to really _look_ at him the way I do now. Beneath the gold afternoon light that floods the room, he is all beautiful edges and unexpected shadow, crackling eyes, defiant. The sharp tilt of his cheek dares me to say something, but the self-deprecating twist of his lips tells me it’s wisest not to.

He turns, faces the mirror. Maybe his reflection is an easier audience, because he speaks to it rather than me,

“The others have all healed, but it—”

My lips part, sympathy while he can’t see me, as the light spills across the smooth planes of his back, his shoulders.

I haven’t seen the brand Mason left him with since the first nights, since one in particular, when we slouched exhausted in the lukewarm water of a bath. If he’s been hiding intentionally, he’s done a very good job of it; we dress together most mornings and I haven’t noticed any hesitation. It’s true, the ritual lacks the playful touches we used to enjoy, the darting around in each other’s spaces. Even still…

It occurs to me that maybe I’ve just been scared to look. Fiercely defensive, determined to be whatever he needs, but unable to face what is glaringly obvious. I can’t will away what Mason did, the things he took, the things _we_ did to survive. It’s not just some bad dream to be forgotten in the wake of exams, chased away with an extra cup of coffee and a comfortable pair of arms. The cinderblock room was real. It will never leave me in some ways. The slackness to Mason’s mouth when I stepped over him and the little muted sounds he made, those too.

And. The thick, jagged lines, pink and raised across Hannibal’s back, are real. A blurred circle of scar, filigree and an ugly, ugly name, the nexus just to the right of his spine, one half slightly darker than the other, and I connect the irregular intensity with the drag of Mason’s wand as I ripped him away.

“Maybe it will…” Hannibal continues, hand sliding over his shoulder, fingers just brushing the top edge of scar tissue. There’s a very raw edge to his voice, “with time...”

He doesn’t flinch when I reach for him, but there’s a tension coiled between us as I step closer. I don’t voice what he already knows; time will not heal what magic couldn’t. What potions and poultices, and murmured spells that smoothed away our other wounds—the ones not made with wands—could not.

My knuckles brush across the skin of his shoulder, and my eyes find his in the reflection, waiting for permission. It comes in a blink, and a nod, and then he can’t watch me anymore, averts them.

I let my fingers skim down then, feel the ridge where burn starts. It’s almost cooler than the surrounding skin, new flesh, the slight tingle of magic lingering in it still, maybe always. Down one side, up the other, my touch follows it carefully.

He holds his breath while I trace this new part of him, lets it out slowly as I dip my head to press my lips lightly over it.

“Maybe,” I agree, “with time.”

And I believe it. Not that the scar will vanish one day, or that we will wake up one morning to find we can no longer remember the color of Mason’s eyes. Hannibal will always, unfortunately, bear this mark.

But I do believe, as time passes and wounds knit—the _real_ ones—there will come a time when he can look at it and see… just a scar. Another span of skin, unusual, in appearance, but as much a part of him as any other. And I, too, can look at it and see nothing of Mason. Only Hannibal.

But the tense lines of his shoulders rise, he’s shrugging out of my grasp and into his shirt. He's done looking, for now.

And I...

 

He turns back to me, apology on his lips, but the armor is back on. He skims a broad palm over my cheek and lifts my chin, and the kiss is cautious but welcome. Brittle smiles and sharp edges, he asks if I'm coming down to dinner, and I nod.

There are still many sleepless nights and somber moments before mirrors to come, I’m sure. But I try a smile back, take his hand.

"Of course."


	37. Chapter 37

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

“Do they spend any time apart?” 

Alana’s voice is quiet as they settle into the couches during their free period. I, of course, am supposed to be in Defense, and not tucked into a nook behind some hangings, knees to my chest along the windows watching the empty sunlit grounds. Illustrating that in fact, we do. I had not quite awoken on the right foot, and Will, terse and tense for reasons of his own, did not argue when I told him I was simply going to remain in our bed. 

I try not to consider that there might have been a point wherein he would have yanked the covers from my body, and then yanked me, half hissing, half laughing from where I lay. 

_ You’re going to class, Hannibal. If I’m going you’re going. I’ll tell Crawford that you’re being a baby if you don’t, insisting on your beauty sleep.  _

And I.

One eye open to watch him, though I am supposed to be too tired to move, the beginnings of a smirk against the pillow, offering.

_ Tell him you kept me up all night. _

A pause. 

_ Better yet,  _ I’ll  _ tell him, next time. You will not cast enough blame on yourself. Somehow it will still be all my fault. _

His voice in my ear, enough growl to rouse me.

_ When we’re late to class in the morning, Hannibal. It usually is. _

Though I am up. I close my lids again, let my eyelashes brush against my cheeks, too much skin showing at the neck suddenly. Give what I believe to be the correct option.

_ Skip Defense with me? _

And a pillow to my head.

The vision fades and Bev’s voice fills the gaps around me, as I try not to taste the loss of it too heavily. 

“Well…” I hear the shrug in her tone, the careful consideration beneath. “They’ve had a rough time ‘Lana. And they’ve had it together.” Soft regret flits in and out of her voice. “I guess they just want to be with someone who understands.”

I hear the hands finding hips, the unhappy glare at nothing. “We could understand.” And then a release of breath and a forcible calming, the voice is less fiery, but no less determined, when it comes again. “I just mean, whatever it is that happened, and I know it’s not court and it’s not  _ camping _ . They’re not talking about it.” 

Alana does so admire talking. 

“And not even to each other, because they’ve just been...frozen, since they’ve gotten back. If they needed each other to get through, whatever it is, I get it. But—” Bev says nothing. “They’re all wrapped up, and they’re just.” She exhales again. “Stuck. Will is pretending he’s better, but there’s something hanging over him all the time, he forgets it, but it always comes back around eventually, consumes his mind, and Hannibal—”

Always the pause after my name.

“He’s not getting better at all. And Will won’t be able to either, until he does. He’s just floating,”

A glancing blow against my cheek. 

There’s an edge in Bev’s voice when it rises again, something defensive and aching all at once. 

“You’re being harsh.”

“Am I?” Alana’s not cowed, I can hear the way her hair whispers around her as she shifts her head, “They’re  _ stuck _ .” 

I can imagine them, Bev standing, pacing, Alana sitting calm, though there’s tension in her fingers, betraying her at the edges. “I’m trying to be practical. I only want, I want to help them, same as you.. For them to be safe. But it’s not good for them...  _ drifting _ like that, for either one of them. You know that.”

_ We are fine.  _ I argue mentally.  _ Fine. _

Perfectly. Fine.

“I don’t.” Brittle curves of speech. “I don’t know anything. They’re doing what they have to, they’re trying to figure themselves out. We can’t— We don’t have a clue, ‘Lana.”

Circling back to the heart of it again and she sighs, frustrated. I hear the clang of screams unscreamed somewhere in the back of her throat, the familiar rhythms of a constant debate.

“Then maybe they should stop pretending to each other, and stop pretending to us. And just. let. us. help. Instead of... of  _ holing up _ like they are, which makes them okay for maybe like a second.” A brush of skin against fabric, wider gestures. “They’re just putting patches on it, but they can’t patch up each other while they’re trying to patch up themselves. That’s the best way for them both to collapse together.”

I purse my lips against this truth and elect to ignore it, consider allowing my mind to surround me, draw away from the room to some faraway museum and not hear out this conversation, but I instead bring myself forward, just enough to for the room to creep into my line of my sight.

The back of Bev’s dark head is towards me, Alana’s bright eyes looking up at her, though for a second I think they flit towards the hidden lines of my form. I still, breath held, pressing to the wall behind me, and they fall away again, rise up, distracted. 

“We’ve always made allowances for them.” 

Her small hands reach out and their fingers twine together, the tones of skin threading in and out, stronger together. Alana pulls her a step forward and she goes, bends until their foreheads are pressing together. Easy touches that press against me, leave me, despite the brusque thoughts circulating through my head, longing. In a greater understanding of the shatters that I am in, though I do not examine the outline of cuts made. Attempt not to think the way Will would look at this scene if he were here, starved eyes. 

“For him. We always have. But if he gets his way, he’ll go on like this forever, trying to outrun the demons.”

Bev’s voice is soft in a way I’ve never heard it, melting along the surface and along every depth. “Some demons—” She murmurs, flush in Alana’s cheeks and all the way down. “you run from.” Their touch is electric, pervades even into my silent observations. “He’s always faced them eventually...You don’t know.” Tired nostalgia for a moment. “You don’t know where he started from.”

“When he’s been pushed.” Alana observes, their breaths brushing along each other. “No one’s pushing him now. Everyone’s just…” She drifts off and they just catch themselves in the web of a stare. “Pretending he’ll be strong enough to leave this behind at some magical moment.” And she whispers the unbearable truth then, in the safety of their moment, Bev’s shoulders tremble. “Maybe he’s not.”

“He’s really in pain.”

It’s little more than a muffled whisper, pressed into the hush of their intimacy which blurs the air in the room, heady, the comfort they find in each other, the strength to push into these corners and push on. 

“I know, but letting it win won’t make it hurt any less.” And. There’s a smile in her voice, a quaver at the end of the thought, something new between them, something raw and recent. “Sharing the pain, always makes it hurt less.” 

“Mmmm.” Bev’s voice has the whisper of a grin too from nowhere, a part of a story only they share. “I can agree with that.”

“Learned the hard way.” Alana agrees, eyes closing, and Bev’s face nuzzles hers as she folds herself so they are fluid against each other, their bodies fitting against each other’s, no pull back, no heaviness, reciprocation which glares into my eyes.

“Old dog” There’s a hint of leer there, “ _ New tricks. _ ” and I draw away at that, at the ease of their back and forth, the sound of speech about what was hidden, what Bev had confessed to me she couldn’t say, but does, comes back to her rock in the end, and together they—

I push myself back to the window, cross my arms into the emptiness. 


	38. Chapter 38

**Will** | _Shatterproof_

* * *

In the common room, surrounded by sunlight and the murmur of voices, I drop a cup.

We’re all sharing a table, books and parchment spread around us. A late autumn storm has given way to a bleak, wintery sunlight, and the air inside the castle is fraught with some kind of giddiness; a nervous pleasure before winter sets in for good. Bev closes her hand over Alana’s from across the table. Hannibal’s eyes track the motion, unwillingly. They smile at each other, the notes of playfulness there, heavy. Jimmy makes a joke that I don’t hear, Hannibal rises, says he’s going to the kitchens, and it’s all so normal that it hurts. I feel it coming before it happens, try to swallow down the panic, remind myself where I am, there’s nothing to be afraid of, but suddenly, stiflingly, I can’t breathe. My vision goes dark, and my lungs stutter, forget how to draw in air, pressure building in my chest, and my throat bobs on a noise with no sound. It’s terrifying, and sudden, and so so out of place, that when my chest seizes back into function, I shake myself, force my eyes to focus.

I swipe hands across my face, feeling clammy, and only then do I notice the cup had fallen from my grasp, clattered dully to the floor. All their eyes are on me as I reach to retrieve it, murmur the spell that will vanish the stain on the rug, but Hannibal’s are the heaviest.

“You okay?” Bev asks low, leaning in to regard me with eyes that see too much. Alana’s too, are watching, cogs clicking in her mind. I nod, feeling shaky, feeling the spread of bruises and cuts, scars that don’t exist except in my mind.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

The cup didn’t shatter, I notice, disappointed somehow. But when I set it back to the table, I see liquid drain through the spread of hairline cracks.


	39. Chapter 39

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

I am determined. 

I am determined and I am capable and that is all there is. Do not need to shift away from touches, do not need anything. Simply, I have decided, as I might have decided already, but had not yet done so with enough gumption, to find my footing again, and so it will be. I have said  _ Fine  _ but I have not meant it. I mean it now. I am certain. And certainty means truth. What can I accomplish if I cannot even have hold of myself?

He is standing idle by the wall of the library, thumbing through a book. 

_ Hannibal?  _

But I have already pressed him back against it, back against the stone, moved my muscles to shift his body, as I have not since the last time I had truly kissed him. But then there was doubt, now resolution. I am well and I am able. I will kiss him, because I love him, because I wish for it, and he does. Kiss him in the way that Bev reaches for Alana, or Jimmy for Brian, or any other pair do, in the nameless mass of students who clash without thought, devour without judgement. If they are able. I am able. 

_ In my mind, I ignore that resolution is just a thought. A thought from my unreliable mind. It is  _ my  _ thought, that will be enough.  _

The book drops to the floor.

Our lips meet. 

It is not a soft kiss, not the gentle exchange of breaths we share in the night before I close my eyes and search for sleep that scarcely visits. It is not a soothing brush of touch, not in the way he runs his fingers along my arm, presses against me, but only just so, only in the way I will allow. 

All is allowed now and all at once; I taste his hunger, lush on his lips. Taste my own. He is starving for me, and I— I only yearn to know I can be, as I once was. Can enact any sequence I would like, settled in my limbs. Events have not changed me, I have simply been out of sorts. 

For the first beats, shock stills him, and my lips tear through his mouth as my body pins, braces him along the stone, fingers coming up to trail across  hips and dart below fabric, quickly untucking and pushing out of the way. In those moments, I rage victorious in my mind, tongue pressing for entrance, curving along his own as he arches breathless, and tilts his head with such intensity there is a thud of skull to wall. He seems awestruck, frozen, afraid to move or breathe or disrupt. He yields beneath my hands, wanting, and I move him, mold him, pull gasps from his throat. A wonderful sensation of action, a welcome current of passivity shed, as we exchange places beneath the darkening windows and he clings to me, as I have been to him. Somehow, I push myself forward so his legs part around me, widen his stance, our bodies closer.

I am taller than him, more so, as he flattens against the wall and me to keep upright, and I am stronger, or so it feels as he melts around me, aches for my touch, the loud keen of want between us. 

_ Please Hannibal,  _ twisting along breaths, and then louder, all but snarled, all but begging. 

It is the perfect storm of sensation. There is a comfort in the familiar curves of his body as my palms skirt against skin, up the paths once travelled daily, with such exacting ease. There is none of that finesse there now, only a clutching desperation, but I refuse to allow these details to resonate, even as they frown through the corners of my lips. I shift them instead to wrap below his ear, suck bites to the skin quickly bared, marvel at the way his shirt rucks up along his body, shivers with my fingers drawn across him. Fuel and fervor, a violent rush of our blood thrumming together.

He is so unbearably beautiful. I kiss the thought into his lips so fiercely it bends him at the knees, lash it along his collarbone with my tongue, encircle him with my teeth. 

And then.

A clear pitch between the blaze. 

_ I’ve missed you.  _

In the roiling current of our minds. 

The thought makes me shudder.

The shudder has effects that ripple, chain reactions. Where it should have none.

Movement,  _ it freezes in me, _ my lips still mouthing along him.  _ Movement.  _

A raise of arms to wrap around my shoulders. Innocent. To touch me, ground me.

_ The weight stirs the angry buzz of wasp’s wings in my mind. A sudden chill. _

He pulls me towards him. I am pulled forward.

_ The breath stutters in my lungs as I am moved.  _

His eyes are still closed. 

I pause. Breathe. Resume. 

He is there before me, as he was not moments ago. But I cannot seem to focus, with the pull. There is not even a shift anymore, truly, only just the heaviness of limb, and yet still I feel it, a yank, continuous, that is only in my mind. A yoke around my neck. The heaviness of a collar, stealing all of my power with careless disregard.

He stirs before me, mouth opening. 

But I— I am determined. I can see this through. A weight of arms? A weight is disarming me. I have decided against such things, have I not? Am capable of withstanding them. Without thinking I reach in quick motions, motions that slide out of me in a whirl that has nothing to do with removal of suffocation, and only everything to do with the moment, and wrap my fingers around his wrists, tug them off me, and up, press them above his head and lean forward to kiss him again. The stone is cold, that is where the ice is coming from. 

There.

There. It is better. 

It.

_ My lips work against his, fight the tremors that start to flit along them _ .

Is.

_ Adrenaline and excitement can cause a body to shake. _

Better. 

_ A little noise of frustration from between my lips. _

“Hannibal—” He pulls away from me with a pant, moves himself away as my arms come back down to my sides, clench in fists as I struggle to even my breathing.

We stand like that, unmoving. 

“Did I hurt you?” I ask finally, when I have managed to alter my voice into something serviceable. 

The edges of his teeth work their way into still swollen lips and his eyes fall to the ground. I do not retract my question, do not form it into anything else.

“People are watching.” A murmur of explanation that falls towards the ground when nothing else appears— though the space surrounding us is empty. But I do not question it, only nod, accept. Slow bend to pick my bag from the floor and I move towards the nearest table, set out my work before me, everything in its place; stack of papers, quill set just so in parallel, one, two, three, books in a line before me. 

That eases the disquiet in inches. 

It is another stretch of minutes before he joins me, but I gaze hard at the series of equations I do not really see as he settles, do not ask what has kept him. Only acknowledge his presence with a little upturn of mouth, though I send my eyes sideways to look at him, peek around my page, some sort of need to be secretive. The flush is still high in his cheeks, his hair a twisting of mess that falls in tantalizing disarray across his forehead. There are a few darkening bruises on his skin. Desirable. I know, he looks desirable.

I turn myself away again. 

Do not speak as our quills scratch, until some time has moved us from that moment, until it is safe enough to tuck away and ignore in my estimations.

“I do not know what that was—” I offer him calmly, unblinking. “But it has passed.”

Swallow, breathe, then finally I look up at him in wait...a wait for him to acknowledge this truth, expectant. There’s a careful set of  _ Hannibal is fine  _ schooled into my features, a little half smirk, untroubled eyes. He will agree and we will move on. 

This time he does not turn away from it, stares at me for a long moment. A quiet appraisal in his gaze, but no speech forthcoming. A pause long enough for the wavering to begin, right around the edges where the panic lives, a knitting of unhappiness that I fight away from the surface, but just as it begins its assault, he smiles finally— and the weight eases from my chest, vanishes in the softness of his gaze. 

“Yeah, I know.” 

Satisfied, I turn back to my notes. We will spend the evening as we have been doing and that will be more than enough. 


	40. Chapter 40

**Will**

* * *

 

Dawn breaks over the pitch, spreading light across grass matted with frost. It glitters, and I lose myself in the sight for a second, the shadows of the players above flickering through as the world narrows to just that calming expanse of green and silver.

“Hey Lecter,” Bev says, cocking her head, “come here.” 

She’s buckled into her quidditch gear, and it suits her, the cold making her cheeks and nose pink, a stray wisp of hair falling loose from the ponytail she’s knotted it into. Hannibal turns to me, brows raised, then lets his eyes slide back to Bev, all dramatic disbelief, and I laugh, nudge him forward.

“ _ Bev _ ,” Alana chides on my other side, “Don’t make him if he doesn’t want to.” But she’s smiling too. The steady hum of affection surrounds her, and something, something sharper—

Ah. She also likes the quidditch gear, I realize with a smirk, settle myself carefully behind walls. 

Bev winks at her over her shoulder, then turns back to Hannibal, who’s taken the few steps forward that put him on the grass before her.

“You ever flown one of these before?”

Breath crystallizes, turns to heavy ice in my chest, and my mind drifts to the midnight flight from Mason’s.  _ Here? _ Tears, cold against my neck, and the sear between my shoulderblades when I slide unwillingly into his mind.

“I have… flown,” Hannibal says, reluctance, but not of the kind that calls to memory. Good. Of course, it’s behind us now, there’s no reason—

Alana’s hand comes to rest atop mine, small, warm palm above, cold stone beneath. I let my gaze trace the path up to her face, but can’t quite reach her eyes, know already what I’ll find there. She sees too much, she doesn’t see enough. I focus instead on the red curve of her mouth, and she squeezes my hand, says quiet, so the other two won’t hear,

“She won’t let him fall.”

It’s such a silly thing, to think that’s what I’m afraid of; a clumsy moment, an accident. I look at her, bemused, and when I do, her eyes are sharp, her meaning clear.

_ You have to let him. _

I swallow, unwilling to acknowledge the silent exchange, look instead to where Bev casually straddles her broom, where Hannibal is attempting the same. I don’t move my hand, enjoying the warmth, the tether of touch against the pressure building behind my eyes, in my chest. Slow breaths.

We laugh, more breathless relief for me, when she nudges and tugs, corrects his posture, the broom taking a sudden sideways lurch that nearly unseats him, and catches her leg. He’s patient, allowing her to play teacher, though he meets my eyes once and I can see the slight disbelief at her audacity; he’s unused to not being immediately good at something. I grin back, a warm pull to watching him fidget and adjust until she’s satisfied.

“So,” Alana says, breath clouding out. There’s a matter-of-factness to her voice, but it’s not light by any means. The sun catches in her hair, little flecks of gold in the smooth sweep of dark. “How long have you been having panic attacks?”

Bev pulls a very battered keeper’s helmet from the dusty trunk of gear at her feet, and plunks it unceremoniously on Hannibal’s head, laughing in the face of his protests. My eyes don’t leave him when I answer Alana, sourly,

“Been reading muggle textbooks again?”

She takes my tone in stride, tilts her head, considering.

“Yes. We’d do well to learn from them, now and then.”

Bev buckles it under his chin, runs a hand roughly over the top to satisfy herself it’s secure. He swats her hands away to straighten it.

“But you’re avoiding the question,” she adds.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I pull my hand out from beneath hers to grab for the paper cup of coffee he’d left behind, let it warm me instead.

“Don’t do that,” Alana says quietly, “don’t do that oblivious act, Will. I know you’re more perceptive than that, than most of us probably. You can’t use that to hide anymore.”

Bev lifts up, hovers a few feet above him, continues to shout instruction down. I sigh,

“It’s not… it’s not like that. I just—”

Slowly, Hannibal’s feet leave the ground, the broom moving in a wobbling line towards Bev. She thumbs up at him, flies excited circles.

“I used to have… episodes. When I was younger. It went away eventually, this will too.”

I take a pull of lukewarm coffee from the cup, hoping this conversation is over, knowing that it’s not. Hannibal darts after Bev in a lurching, unsteady arc, and she laughs, draws him higher.

“Will. These things don’t just ‘go away.’ If you’ve suffered some kind of trauma—”

“I’m not your patient, Alana,” I interrupt, maybe a little sharply. Maybe a lot of me is sharp, recently, maybe part of me is looking for a direction I can lash out in. “Save the psychoanalysis for someone who needs it.”

I punctuate it with a stormy look, but it screeches into a halt when I see her. Sheepishness runs a current under my skin, her lips parted, eyes tight, like I’ve hit her, and I mumble,

“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

She closes her eyes, takes a slow breath. The backdrop of laughter clashes brightly with the turn of conversation. Hannibal and Bev are gone when I look up, hopelessly, faded into two more dark specks against the brightening sky, lost among the other fliers swirling in drowsy arcs.

“You don’t get to be the only one who’s hurting,” Alana says finally, voice raw. “We  _ all  _ almost lost him.”

One of the shadows above us dips, suddenly, and my breath catches painfully. But the figure rights itself, a glint of something gold, and I realize it’s not Hannibal.

“We almost lost  _ you _ .”

Her chin is set into a hard line that gives her a new look, a sharpness. I silently miss the easy happiness of the girl in the red dress, and I wonder if we did this to her, or if it was always there. Just a part of growing up, the hardening of edges.

“I know you want to help,” I tell her, giving up searching for the other half of us, “God, do I understand that. But the truth is—”

_ The truth is, I’m fighting the sense that this isn’t real, that I could blink and be back in the dark, the copper smell of blood all around.  _

A swallow, and I focus on the blue of Alana’s eyes, the way she’s started parting her hair.

_ I am here.  _ Fiercely. _ I am here, and he is too. _

“—I couldn’t tell you what’s wrong if I tried. Everything should be okay now, but I’m just… scared, all the time. And fucking angry, not at anyone, at everyone. And…”

I choke out a laugh, knowing how I probably look to her. To her credit, she keeps the concern from her face, just listens, chin tilted towards my words.

“And when he leaves, even for a little… it  _ terrifies _ me.”

My hands grip the cup so tightly I’m concerned it might break. For an instant, I remember a mug that didn’t shatter, only cracked. 

“What if he… what if he needs me, and I’m not, I can’t—”

In my mind, Hannibal leans into Mason, and I’m powerless. I’m weak. I am the reason he leaves, and comes back with bruises in the shape of hands, with a shadow behind his eyes that lingers still, even in our brightest moments. 

I flinch when Alana’s arm slips around me, make a soft noise of surprise, but she stills there, waits for my heartbeat to calm.

“You can’t fight everyone’s battles, Will,” she murmurs, squeezes my shoulders. “And you can’t take credit for everyone’s pain; believe me. It’ll drive you crazy.”

My lips twitch at the words, though they also plant something true there, in the rocky landscape of my mind.

“Is that your professional opinion,” I say, quirking a brow, “ _ Dr. Bloom?” _

She laughs, plants a kiss to my cheek,

“Yes. You’d better enjoy it before I start charging by the hour.”

I let myself relax into her presence, and we settle into easier talk as morning turns to afternoon. Hannibal is clearly not destined for a career in flying, but slowly, slowly, I stop trying to track his path, stop itching for my own broom, trust him to Bev. Trust  _ him _ . 

Alana and I talk about the new Muggle studies professor, about the scout that will be at Bev’s next game, how nervous she’s been. I laugh when she, in a low, conspiratory tone, as if they might hear us somehow, shares that Bev refused to change her socks for a week before the last one.

“I really hope that this time—” she’s laughing when they finally touch ground again, and clears her throat, eyes going guileless. Bev and Hannibal stumble towards us, flushed and shivering.

“ _ Fuck _ , it’s cold,” Bev announces, tearing the leather from her clothes as she walks, “Let’s get inside before my fingers fall off.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” Alana quips, takes them between her own. Bev grins wickedly as her hands receive a little, red-lipped kiss.

Hannibal settles heavily beside me as they continue their banter, a little groan as he does. He pulls the helmet from his head to reveal unruly spikes of sweat-damp hair. Despite our talk, I feel the air ease into my lungs again only when he’s beside me.

_ You can’t help him if you don’t help yourself. _

I ignore the errant thought, trace fingers through his hair, lip bitten on a laugh as I try uselessly to smooth it back into place,

“If I am ever inclined to get on a broom again,” he growls low beneath my hands, “please remind me of this.”

He kisses me, heady with the rush of flying, and I lean into it, pieces slipping into place. Is it dangerous, how much he’s become my safety net? 

Am I his?

The thought that maybe,  _ I  _ am the problem, with my tiptoeing, my fear of letting him go, settles uncomfortably as he draws back, his eyes warm on me. Something flickers across his features, suddenly, an amusement.

“Beverly,” his fingers turn my jaw, sharply. Despite my confusion, something molten lurches in my belly at the rough touch, and I shiver, wanting more. “Do you see what I’m seeing?”

She stops mid-chatter to Alana to look at me where I’m held at display, and barks a laugh.

“What?” I ask, face hot, but Bev has sunk to her knees, all camp.

“ _ Oh _ the betrayal!” she manages through giggles, and Hannibal, too is smirking.

“Gone for only minutes, and you’ve replaced me,” he tuts, lays another kiss on my closed mouth, “such capriciousness.”

I look to Alana for help, and she’s rolling her eyes—Bev is now fully on the wet grass, reciting broken Shakespeare.

“You’ve got a little…” she explains, grinning, and gestures to her cheek. My hand finds my own, comes away with a smudge of lipstick. 

I pull out of Hannibal’s grasp, a groan of understanding, and now it’s  _ my  _ turn to roll my eyes.

“Please. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

I punctuate it with a hand at his hip, an easy possessiveness. When I lean to kiss him though, he turns his head—not much, but enough. It lands on his cheek. the laughter still there, but a flicker of something else. A reminder. 

I let my hand fall to my side. He takes it in his, and we walk back.


	41. Chapter 41

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

"Hannibal." He starts as I come through the door, he's sitting cross legged on the bed, frowning at nothing. The room is unusually empty. On any given day this would cheer me, but there is something about the unsettled set of his shoulders that draws the same unease through me. My first inclination is that something is wrong, an injury missed, a nightmare realized, has Mason somehow recovered his memories? Are we—

The swirl of thought surrounds me, but he straightens, alarmed suddenly as well. "No, it's not like that. Sorry." His voice comes out soft, but all at once strained. "Sorry." Again. But the tension is louder this time trapped in the curves of his speech, in the furrows along his brow, stress at his jaw, his eyes wandering around where my muscles have knitted, my fingers clenched on reflex, ready. For a moment his gaze is lost. 

"It's nothing big." He clarifies slowly, needlessly, and foolishness presses through me suddenly at the reaction, though he has not made to feel so. Imperceptible shifts of my weight back and forth.

I want to move past this moment, leave it in my wake in favor of stepping into the next, where we sit and work until dinner, ease into the rhythms wherein we've settled. But there's not invitation in the lines of his body, in the pull of his mind, to draw closer.

A sudden need, I blink, for invitation at all.

My things, I notice, the space around him occupying my eyes as he becomes difficult to look at, are gathered next to him in a small...almost neat, pile. Sweaters folded, their corners sharp and smooth, ties rolled, books stacked, for him, I can imagine, the project of hours. But at this instant, the smile that might have bubbled at the thought of him frustratedly trying to even sleeves doesn't come.

He straightens slowly against the headboard, shoulders pulling into a line, as he moves his chin around to look at me. Something stricken in his eyes, but decided. “It’s just, I think you should spend tonight in your own dorm.”

The words fall to the ground, leaden weights. He seems to despise saying them, but feels cause, and I not wishing to hear them at all, frown at him, attempt to find a reasonable explanation, a skill that I have truly sharpened of late. A false start of lips and then.

“Has someone complained?” I can imagine Jack would find that his holidays had begun early for an excuse to inject space between us. “Your roommates, they have finally decided that my presence is an unwelcome intrusion? We could attempt to discuss with the Head of your house or remove ourselves to my dorm for a time, there—”

“Hannibal.” I stop short at the sound of my name again, as he had said when he attempted to begin this conversation. In truth, I am about to open my lips again, but when he finds my eyes, I press them shut. Allow him to speak, as he silently pleads for. 

“ _ I _ ,” Pressed emphasis, a current of something resolved edging around the uncertainty. A necessary move to make, but one that he is not yet sure he will not regret. “think that you should sleep in Slytherin tonight.” The breath huffs out of him, rings loud, and with it, he’s lost again, shoulders slumping, a strange mixture of guilt and relief, fear and stubbornness.

On my part, the world teeters dangerously, a sudden light headedness. It crashes with an impact I am certain he is trying to avoid, but thunders dangerously in my head, along the careful constructions of calm that I hold fast to, distaste, maybe fear, of what lies below them. 

"I don't—" Low care to the words. "It’s just—"

Silence.

"Every time you leave my sight I get scared." Trembles of voice and hoarser, admissions. Admissions we have not shared, failed to discuss, that I have no wish to wrestle with at this juncture, not ever, but I cannot but listen to the frail tenor of his voice, enchanted. I have not heard it since he was half mad in the dark, but it has lived. He has kept it from me. I wish him to keep it from me, I wish to hear it. "Terrified." It is truth, I know, and it muddles and confuses. 

An argument for togetherness, I try to think, reach for the neat sheet to throw over the mess. But it is sand through my fingers. And he is speaking still. It would be childish, I suppose, to cover my ears and stamp my feet. I take only breaths.

"But that's not—You're going to have to leave my sight." His hand tangles through his hair absentmindedly tugging at it, pulling and messing. "I can't always know exactly where you are and what you're doing." Fingers pause on his skull. "I mean, I can feel you, but." Frustration, fear. "But you have to be able to walk out of that door, I have to be able to let you." He swallows, looking away again. "Without being afraid that—"

He cuts off, edges around and looks for another way, it flinches against me.

I say nothing.

In the wake of words, everything churns.

“And when we touch—” Almost choked, but determined. When we touch. I turn my face away from that, from the failures on the one hand and the dance on glass of the other. The moments I have pressed away, ignored because they do not suit me. There is no wish in me to consider how I cannot touch him except on some wild whim to prove myself capable, and he cannot touch me, almost at all. 

It verges on too much, too loud in my head, there’s panic there, that same kind of incapable helplessness, that same utter loss of power that has gotten me to this place altogether. Not gone, not gone at all, wand back, chains vanished, Mason little more than a bag of bones, but still, what has gone from me, still, gone.

Silently, he appraises me. We balance on a tightrope, the ground falling away. He has protected me from this, from this knowledge, but as he stares it in the eye, it forces my gaze, and I think only, that I am sure to be turned to stone. 

“You don’t have to be ready, I swear.” Fiercely, he means it. And I have promised I have kicked the crying habit. Only blankness. “But if I hurt you or...” He shakes his head hard, curls flying. I want to protest to tell him that I do not hurt that easily, that nothing he could do could— that. But I do not. “Or if I let you hurt yourself...I want to be safe for you Hannibal, I  _ want  _ that. But I can’t.” He sucks in a breath. “I think I’ll fuck it up, if we keep this up. It's been what we needed. Both of us, but we can't…You have to be safe for yourself.”

He trails, twists the blanket between his fingers.

“This isn't...it's not sustainable."

And the thoughts he doesn't voice, that he would never, echo around us, murmur in my ear, whisper in tormenting voices that I haven't thought of him, not nearly enough. No respite from my wounds, that I've laid across his shoulders as though they were his burden to carry. Not touching the open aches myself, because they hurt, not pushing to heal because the situation has suited me enough, and in the rended edges of my mind, I was content to steal peace from him, but squandered it. It takes the breath from me. 

Too busy being ruined and not acknowledging it.

Not allowing him to acknowledge it.

But I do not know how to heal. I do know how not to shy away when he reaches for me,  I do not know how to stop the constant discontent. I do not know what I am looking for.

I only know that it is easier when I am with him. When it is only us. It is easier to remain still and not jostle the broken bone.  

"I am not sure if I can look."

I murmur finally, where I might have once been offended, pressed myself away at the dismissal, anger, or worse, reciprocated  pain, I am only tired. It would seem I am only ever tired, these days. 

He's inviting in the bed, easy safety in soft plaid, I could convince him to change his mind, allow me to stay, one more night, one more hour. Not healing, but not hurting.

“You can.” There’s no doubt in his mind there, his gaze sears through me, knows me, sees me. “We’ll help.” But I have knowledge too. That in truth, he cannot. I will be able to bring myself to the bitterness of what lurks or I will not. His lips curl into the first starts of a smile, but there’s unnaturally shining about his eyes. “Start small, this night apart and the next one...just to see that we’re both still there in the morning. Prove it.” 

I draw nearer at that, though my mind races still. He reaches out and our fingers twine, I press a kiss to his forehead. 

“To me too.” The whisper is barren. “We both need to learn.”

So much of me wishes to argue still, to ask for the lies again. But in the face of the burn of truth, I only nod. 

At the very least, every step taken out of the dormitory is one towards morning.


	42. Chapter 42

**Will**

* * *

 

It’s been a long time. Tonight, it wasn’t the blood-splattered snow, or a little girl’s screams that woke me. 

It was my own.

It was flashes of camera bulbs, it was hands pushing, bending me, a swirl of powerlessness while blood trickled down a tear-streaked face. Unseeing, unmoving while pain was pressed against my skin. Suffocating. Taking and taking and  _ taking _ , and me unable to fight, drifting through passively.

I wake without a sound, the new clarity I’ve reached with my empathy lending me an awareness that it was not my own nightmares roiling through me. The brush of Hannibal’s mind a light in my darkened dormitory, despite the empty spaces where we’ve maintained this small stand of distance.

I find him in the Astronomy tower. I top the dark, damp staircase to the open air, gasp at the sudden cold that slips fingers under my coat, nips at my wrists and ankles. Hannibal is a small stroke of color against a gray expanse of sky. I wonder when he got so thin.

It’s so quiet up here that I can hear the snow falling; a soft, constant whisper of flakes landing across the blanket of white that hides the stones of the tower. It dusts my hair too, my lashes, as I walk up to his side, stepping in his footprints to try and reduce the amount of cold powder seeping into my shoes.

He’s looking up, out, across the grounds, and in the strange, mirror-blue light his eyes are almost black, his cheeks sharp with shadow. 

My hand finds a shoulder, sharp too, under the bulk of his coat, and his eyes close, a pearl-colored cloud sighs from his lips. He allows some of his weight to slump against me, and it’s a small warmth but a bright one. The snow drifts, disguises the pines in clouds of powder.

At last, he shifts at my side, looks down.

“What’s that?” he asks, lips tugging into a small smile. “Surely you don’t intend on spending the night up here.”

I look down at the blanket draped over my arm, the one I dragged from my bed as I dressed in the dark. I smile in return, a little sheepishly.

“You… you used to forget.”

A glance down at his feet, over his coat, lets him know what I mean. A picture of him shivering, the first time I caught him in a dream.

His face pulls into something almost wistful.

“We are different, now.”

“Older. Different nightmares,” I shrug, my arm not leaving his shoulders. Unspoken, the question lingers in the drift of white,  _ Do we talk about it? _

There’s no sound but the soft patter of snow.

I wrap the blanket over him anyway, despite the coat, despite the fact that it’ll be cold and damp and generally useless when I eventually crawl back into bed. It warms me, to see him draped in blue, and more, to be able to offer something. Even if it is just a worn and unnecessary blanket. He looks for a second like he might argue, his mouth opens, but as it settles over his shoulders, my arms follow, his protests melt.

He looks again across the grounds, leans back against me. Swallows, once. 

“...I’m scared, Will.”

The words plunge icy hands into my chest, not just them but the brittle-sharp truth they call to attention.  _ Me too _ , I think, but that’s not helpful, so I shiver, once, tuck my chin over his shoulder. 

“Of what?”

I think my arms might tighten around him. He is still, his breath coming in soft, smokey exhales.

“I don’t…” he stops, considers. “That if I look, I’ll find something is not—that  _ I  _ am not…”

_ not okay. _

He shudders and trails off.

“It does not matter.”

“Hannibal, it—”

He stops my words with a look that frightens me, a  _ pleading _ . I disagree, but I know somewhere deep that he needs to be ready. I can’t force pieces back together. I remember Alana’s words,  _ you can’t fight everyone’s battles _ .

And for a second I think of Mason, the anger not warming, but cold flame. I wish I could take it back, erase it all; from the moment at Hogsmeade all this was set into motion, to the day we escaped into the woods. I wish our problems were as simple as a lack of a coat. Something that I  _ can _ fix.

Hannibal laughs, a dry sound.

“We’re supposed to be discouraging codependency.”

I smile, an ache growing in my chest at the question lilting between his words.

“I think we’re allowed a few exceptions, don’t you?”

The hum of acknowledgement he makes is something slightly more than pleased.  _ Relieved _ , I think. Alana would tell me I’m enabling, but I don’t know which of us is more comforted by this.

We stay for a few more moments, watching the darkened world glitter. From the tower’s edge, it all seems very small, almost unreal. When we descend the staircase, we do so hand in hand, and we find the door tucked into the wall with no trouble. Cold, wet clothes find the floor. I fix what little I can by warming his hands between my own, letting him press freezing feet against my legs. Shivers slowly calm into sleepy warmth under a pile of covers, and I pull him close to me, my head against his chest. He sleeps as though he hasn’t, really, in days, and I…

I let him. I watch snow swirl past the window, as though in this way, I can guard against nightmares. Only in the dim hours of morning, his breathing still soft and uninterrupted, light beginning to fill the room, do I finally let my eyes slide closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song time again; this chapter was written to ["The Mirror-Blue Night" ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mAo-u0ZbxM)from Spring Awakening; you can catch a couple of little nods to the lyrics of the song within the fic, if you squint. Other songs from the same show influenced some later chapters; _Touch Me, the Guilty Ones_ , etc etc, it's just an A+ soundtrack, and perfect for where the boys are right now :)  
> It's been a little quiet out there; are you all in midterms right now too?


	43. Chapter 43

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

“Hands further apart, Hannibal.”

Her voice comes whirling in my ear as I lunge forward, blade whistling through the air. Better, I know, better than the last few attempts, more a part of me, but I am too slow. I do not like the offense for exactly that reason, I do not like seeing the weaknesses.

_ Clang.  _ Our swords meet heavy in middle space, metal singing as she parries the blow, a far distance away from the neck where I aim. 

We stop there, in the suspension, and breathe. And I consider again that I have never seen my aunt like this, her hair, normally loose and smooth along her shoulders, is tucked up into a braided bun, disheveled, a little, though no hair escapes...an enviable talent, I have full awareness that mine has long fallen from neatness, sticks to my head with rivulets of sweat. Her customary long robes too, have been set aside for a pair of loose pants, a shirt I did not think would have belonged in her closet, though it does not quite earn the term T-shirt, across her shoulders. They have always appeared to me graceful, but now seem rife with power. Her eyes, constant sources of fierceness, shade with playful mischief as we circle around the room, open fondness. I am not exactly sure what to do with her gaze. 

She separates her own grip a little more, right hand sneaking up, left snaking down.

“You will have more control.” 

It is the tone of instruction, it is an obvious correction.

But the breath catches in me at the words.

For a moment they sour the peace for me, a bitter bubbling of phrases beneath my skin, something that doesn’t form but presses along the lines of  _ If only it were as simple as that.  _

But then she has danced away, blade coming up above her head in a graceful arc, held for not even a second, before it snaps down in a downward strike, moving directly towards me, ready to remove my distracted head from my shoulders. Hastily I blink back to the moment, dart to the side with barely enough time for the sword to find only air, my hands moving apart as I shift.

“Successful.” Her laugh is rich, she seems younger than I find her normally, something somber lifted from her shoulders. “You are quick, Hannibal.” An aching relief for us both in this. “But you cannot win on quickness alone.” As she talks her sword comes again, lifts easily to dance close to my ribs, it catches the edges of my shirt as I leap back, sword coming up heavily out. “You will have to strike eventually.” Another attack, this time I duck down to avoid, come up to lunge again at her invitation, a half-hearted swoosh, easily stopped and back.  

“I am better at avoiding.” I do not tilt my eyes away from hers and she does not hide hers from me. 

She sidesteps to her right and I to my left, we circle each other again, waiting.

“If you avoid, the tides will not ever be shifted,” A sweeping cut around, into the space of my step, and I redirect. “You will always be running.” 

I am trying to stop.  _ I will try.  _

When we had finally arrived home, two days ago now,  I found the long narrow box on my bed. 

A note that said,  __ _ An early present for the holidays  that I hope you will enjoy. Please join me in the morning, if it suits you, and we will begin to practice its use. _

It is not the ornate samurai sword that is displayed in her chambers, no inlay of stones, jewel bright with color, nor ancient symbols mixing with calligraphy-sharp points of ink, sweeping edges of birds, butterflies, and flowers. Only the raw blade. I shift it closer to me, tilt it up, defensive, as we continue our stroll, our unbalanced partner dance. Plain, for practice and wear, charmed not to cut. 

But nonetheless it is a sword.

A  _ weapon.  _ Not as a wand is a weapon, but also a healer, a charmer, a friend. The Katana is a weapon with no other purpose but to channel the violence my muscles might create, inherent not in a force that I tap into, but in  _ me _ , created and generated in the snap of my arm and the draw of my cells, directed through steel and unleashed. 

Or at least, I imagine it  _ can  _ be. 

But though I verge on clumsiness, the weight of it in my hand is secure. A distraction from the exhausted despondency for me, in waves it helps and it doesn’t.

Today is a good day.

She does not suggest to me why she thinks this is a good moment for me to hone my skills with such a tool. Does not imply in her words or motions that physical exertion coupled with an opportunity to strike against an opponent would do me well. But I know all of that, taste it along with the slightest edges of steely desire to be ready.  _ If it should happen again, Hannibal.  _ I can almost hear her words. 

“You must be prepared at all times.” 

She chides as her sword lands heavy against my skin, catches me under the arm. A certain death, as she trails it diagonally across my chest, pulls it down, the phantom vision of skin flaying, organs tangling, flesh trailing in chunks and back. For now it is only pressure, and the flushing red of my cheeks as she scores another point.

Another death.

“Do not let your thoughts lead you astray.”

In the middle of the room, we reset, each of our blades out, hovering around each other, sensing the presence of the enemy but not yet knowing where she will go. 

“Where would I go?” My lips twist grimly at her, the edge of sarcasm not so well hidden, but not as overt as it might be, had it been anyone else I was addressing. I attempt not to level disrespect at her, but I cannot be but myself. My hands twist tighter around the sword, callouses are forming already, and the ache that was is shifting in inches into numbness. I have done nothing but go over the past three days, left dinner in sudden urgency without saying a word, refused to sit with her in the evening because I could not rise from bed, lost time to aimless staring, only to snap anxious at her quiet words.

A laugh ripples from her throat at that, again surprising. “Your Uncle enjoyed scoffing with a sword in hand as well.” A quick shift back and she angles around to the right of me. “But you, Hannibal,” I move with her this time, sword following as I watch the movement of the blade, measure the beats of her movement, “are always going somewhere. For now, I ask—”

My knees are ready to spring as she comes towards me, ready to jump away, find safety. The last moment is steadily approaching.

“—that you stay here. Do you think are able to—”

Her words cut off as my hands shoot up, the blade finding vertical moments from my face, ending the flow of her strike. Concise movement of my wrist. To my own surprise, and hers. She is blocked by the strength of it, the vibrations reverberating back into her, taking her a half step back. A slow, proud smile that renders her younger still,

“Good.” 

And it is, but I do not allow the moment of pause to think about it, send my weight around her, step quickly and then, though she is turning already, allow the end of the sword to guide me forward. 

In my mind, the air shifts, and there are doors with locks around me. Laughter behind them. Laughter in me. They live in me. In this moment of triumph, when unforeseen bravery is loud in me, I send my sword around to them, swirl in a circle to catch the tines on all the locks, sharp motions to sever the solidity, and the metal clatters in pieces to the floor, the knobs rattling with excitement. 

_ We will come for you.  _

They warn. 

_ But I cannot always be running.  _

What Will had said, in halting words, what my aunt shows, in physical example. 

_ Or the tides will never turn. _

_ Or we’ll never get better.  _

“Hannibal?” Her voice draws me out of the depths of my mind, away from the swirling black masses that begin to slip into the small room inside of me, ready to overrun my head. She is standing frozen before me, my sword where it had landed, frozen against her neck. 

A point. 

A death to me. 

I tighten the grip on my sword. 

“Again,” I say by way of answer and it is to her credit that she does not allow the concern to continue, tucks it away to return to the frenzy of battle. 

_ But this time I will fight.  _

A newly determined set of my face. She has asked me to remain here with her. And I find, as she moves me beyond my moment of weakness, cutting us sharply forward, back into the fray of movement and energy exchanged. That I do not wish to go. Not yet, not now. One more moment of pretending while the humors are with me. And one more, and one more, and…

It is hard sometimes, to try.

The next blow is clumsy again, and I dart away instead on reflex for more than one cut, whirl beyond reach, before the metal can singe my skin. But I drag my teeth across my lips, breath moving my ribs up and down heavily, focus settling in me, and force myself again to still as she charges, feint left, shift right, and swing down, pressing forward though her sword trails dangerously close. An arch back of my neck to avoid, but my body solid, catching her with a cut up against her side, just above her stomach.

A successful sequence, executed without halting pauses, wrong angles, and hesitant blows.

When she looks up at me, pride is written in along her features. 

Something primal and protective. A quality of feeling that is granted by nature, that embeds itself somewhere in our bones so that we may know who belongs to us and who does not, and hold onto them, and so to ourselves. I understand this feeling, for Will, I understand it. But it is not often that pride gazes back to me from the face of another, in this fashion, that murmurs  _ family.  _ Motherhood, but not the definition that speaks of sweet softness. No, the unwritten oath that she would kill for me, to protect me, if she had to.

And I—I would kill for Will. I would, for Mischa,  _ I don’t think of the names. I try not to think of the names.  _ And in this moment, as the connection between us grows, I add her to the list. 

“When I knew I would lose your uncle,” She lowers her blade, stands before me, close, head tilted in thought. I will be taller than her soon. At her voice, I wonder suddenly if she misses him. I have not thought of them together in a very long time, not since before I could quite have notion that you might miss another person at their absence. 

But that lesson, I have certainly learned.

A query for another time, I suppose, as she keeps talking. 

“Fear would clench my heart in the night. I would close my eyes afraid that in the very moment when I did not look upon him, he would fade from me.” 

A familiar fear, but it is not me, I think, who feels it. 

“It returns some nights,” The low lilt of her voice catches me. “Of late.”

I do not need her to qualify. 

“I am trying.” I answer, the broken record of my mind. Though I know I have not yet forced myself to look, in the way that I need to, in the way that I should, in the way that— 

“I know, Hannibal.” Her sword clatters to the floor as she moves instead to press her hand to my arm. “I know that you are. And you are doing so remarkably well.”

Though I know they are a lie, the words glow something in me to hear. A reassurance I was unaware I needed and would have feigned not feeling at all, were it not for my new resolve not to hide from myself any longer. 

“Others would have broken, long before arriving at this moment, to stand before me and tell me that you are trying.” The smile is sadder now. “You have bowed, Hannibal. But you will straighten.” Fingers around where mine clutch the sword. “Send your weapon through what haunts you.”

Her presence is a different kind of easing than Will brings. The same moment of renewal that I felt when I first encountered her presence, when the pristine woman enveloped me in her spicy scent, and I was lifted from the dust that clung to me. An earning of my grudging trust, an awed sort of worship. 

“You are not my son, Hannibal.” New life, she gave to me, a rebirth, and rebirths can only ever be symbolic, but perhaps remain no less important. “But if I had to select for one, there would be no other choice for me.” In the face of this strange praise, I close my eyes. Praise is euphoric to me, if I feel I have rightfully earned it, as I usually do, but sometimes, it is difficult. I cannot think of a single adult that would agree with the sentiment she puts forth. 

But...perhaps, it is in the basic affinity we have for our family. A sort of blindness that clouds us. 

I hear her shift to lift her sword again. 

“Not for one less tiresome?” I squint my lids open to find her chuckling returned, in the ready position, move hastily to return to it myself.

“Really, Hannibal?” She sets off and we are moving again. “I would need to be concerned with mess, poor tastes, prattling desires for this and that. Do you think that would be pleasing?” 

I am laughing too I find, for the first time, like this, in a very long time, and shake my head to clash forward, not dodge away.

“No.” A mirror of my old arrogance, but it is thin and pale. “You are right, I am superior.” 

Our laughter mixes into the space, fills the corners for now. 

\--

_ Somewhere the demons howl, eat away slowly, growing larger and larger, greater than even I have allowed them to become, locking them away and ignoring them.  _

_ They carve fear through me still, I know I am not ready.  _

_ But I will have to be.  _

_ The darkness kisses into my light and threatens. I pretend I cannot feel it, in this good moment, where I am not laid out on my bed, when I am moving and acting, being. But, always. _

_ Always, I know it is there.  _


	44. Chapter 44

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics referenced in this chapter belong (obviously) to the Rolling Stones, and the particular song playing on Will's dadrock cassette is ["Wild Horses." ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFLJFl7ws_0)Which I would imagine probably holds some special meaning for Dave Graham, based on the reaction. So I'll just leave that link there, in case you're curious :)
> 
> (Funnily enough, this song shares several chords with "Cold Arms," the song I shared a few chapters ago for Will and Hannibal; you'll notice the similarity as soon as it starts playing)

**Will**

* * *

 

God, it’s nice to be home. I didn’t realize  how much I missed Dad until he hugged me at the airport; one of those awkward, one-armed embraces, and I swear his eyes were wet. (Not that I’d point that out to him.) 

It was hard to let Hannibal go, though logically I know that he’ll be fine for a couple weeks at Lady M’s. The difference between what  _ know  _ and  _ feel  _ is stark, and despite knowing nobody’s out to get us, I found myself counting breaths for most of the plane ride, measuring each in and out, aiming for control of the imagination that leapt out of hand the second he stepped away from me, and utterly failing.

It helped, a little, to fill my head with Louisiana. The lazy drift of sea, the smell of home, and don’t get me wrong—I  _ did _ miss not coming home this summer. But there’s only a shudder at the thought of the alternative; Hannibal alone and I oblivious, thousands of miles away. No.

It’s been a hell of a year. I think Dad saw something of that when he caught me outside the terminal. It’s not something I can really talk about, what’s kicking around in my head, but the shadows are there, the wariness, and maybe he hasn’t always been the most attentive, but he’s perceptive enough in the way a parent is to read the lines under my eyes. His concern was a softly bitter thrum, filling me immediately and reminding me of getting lost in a grocery store.  

I’m a little more lost than that now, but it was still good to let myself lean against him for a second, close my eyes and breathe the leather smell of his battered jacket; familiar and soft, and lurching me into memory. I felt small when I squeezed him back, my own eyes stinging, I wanted to just slump against him, run back to years when he could solve any problems I could possibly have. I felt  _ tired _ , and it was okay to just let myself be for a minute.

I pad into the kitchen, bleary-eyes and bare feet, and Dad’s already up; the crossword spread across the table, pen in the corner of his mouth, coffee to his left. He looks up when I round the doorway, grins,

“Hey kiddo. Eggs on the stove.”

Eggs they are. Sort of. I scoop some onto a plate, suddenly ravenous, and they drip in a way that scrambled eggs probably shouldn’t. But what he lacks in technique, he makes up for in… creole seasoning. A lot of it. 

“So—” I say, clear my throat and try again when the spices choke my voice into something more like a squeak, “so what are we doing today?”

Typically, I wouldn’t expect much in answer, a shrug and the question returned to me, but he’s been strangely determined this trip that our days are full. I suspect, the thought aching dully, that it's a ploy to get me to come home this summer, him misreading my reasons for not having done so last year.

“Well,” he says, sets the pen down in exchange for his mug—one that I got him, I notice. It’s a chintzy thing, bought with a few of Memaw’s dollar’s when I was seven, it bears the phrase “Galaxy’s Best Dad” and an illustration of a flying saucer. “It’s a little late for it, but we could go up to Point Jenni.”

I’m in the middle of braving another bite of eggs(ish) but I nod and try to smile around it.

He lets me drive us. I’m more confident with the clutch now, as we cruise over the bridge, through marshland and along a long, straight road. The trees that blur past us are draped with lacy, pale green moss, the windows are down, and the Stones sing about satisfaction, then expectations. We leave the highway for backroads. The lazy pace of the music suits the atmosphere, the morning air that isn’t precisely warm, but feels balmy compared to the chill wind I stood in only days ago, saying goodbye to Hannibal.

I frown, try not to think of that. It’s been less than a week, but I  _ miss _ him, I spend each night worrying about him, nervousness churning in my stomach at the thought that  _ I can’t help him if— _

I’m already halfway through my visit. Tomorrow is Christmas, I realize with a shock. I wonder what he’s doing. Lady M probably organized something to distract and entertain; she’s very good at that. 

I wonder how he sleeps at night, if he struggles like me, tangles his legs in the covers, wakes in a sweat. 

_ I’ll miss you _ , he’d said, forehead pressed to mine, hand against my cheek. I leaned up, closed the gap between us so our lips could meet in a brief but welcome warmth. 

_ I have to go. I need to see him. _

_ I know, _ another kiss, soft, then another,  _ and you should. But I will miss you. _

The song changes, and the twang of guitar gives way to a gentler strumming. I am pulled back to the car, the gulf breeze. I smile over at Dad, to let him know I’m here with him, but to my shock, he’s the one who seems far away.

_ You know I can’t let you slide through my hands _

His mouth is set into a soft frown, there’s a line between his brows. Pain. I’ve seen the same expression in the mirror enough to know it without needing to reach. He turns the volume down as the chorus kicks in.

“Where’d you get this?” he asks. He doesn’t sound angry, but there’s an edge in his voice, I can feel something he’s trying to hold back thrumming vivid around him. I pull my mind back, embarrassed, and shrug,

“It was in that box of tapes you gave me.”

He nods, makes a quiet sound of acknowledgement, looks out the window at the passing landscape. The song goes on, quietly.

“...Dad?” I ask, bold out of nowhere.

“Hm?” he answers without looking back my way. I think, suddenly, how hard it must have been for him, having a kid like me. He’s not exactly the best at expressing emotion, and I—well. I’ve always been me, been what he terms as “perceptive” but knows is more. No way for him to hide his hurt from me, so we both learned to protect each other. 

In light of this, I hate to ask what I’m suddenly compelled to.

“You still miss Mom?”

Even the word feels strange to say, holds no real meaning for me, but I can see how it strikes him.

“I—Jesus,” he huffs, “what a question.”

I glance over at him again, meet his eyes for a second—the same blue-gray as mine—and he must see something there, because his sad attempt at a smile fades, replaced with a solemn determination.

“Yes. Always.”

His face eases, the pain not quite fled, but it’s back to a kind of sheepishness. He rasps a hand across his cheek, as though he could wipe the feeling away.

“But Will, you know. I loved your mother— _ love _ her. But she just didn’t want... this.”

I hear the inherent  _ me _ in his words,  _ she didn’t want me. _

“—and I can’t blame her for being how she is, when that’s how I fell in love with her. If I tried to change her to suit me, tried to make her how she’s not… well I couldn’t.”

I think I understand that sentiment more than he realizes. It’s easy, in the warm gold of the day, to forget, but his words call up the memory of  _ two got away, _ of  _ what will you do?  _ and Hannibal’s quiet answer,  _ I don’t know _ . I wonder what Dad would think of that, if he would condone my applying the same reasoning to Hannibal as he allows for the woman who left us, or if it’s logic he can only apply because he loves her.

His eyes crinkle into a smile, and he looks at me,

“So what’s her name?”

I don’t follow at first, spare him a glance as I turn off onto the next side road, 

“What?”

“Come on. You’ve never asked me anything like that. There’s a girl, isn’t there?”

“Uh,” I pause, stumble for the words. My mouth twists wryly. Although this conversation was an eventuality, I had really not planned on having it in this precise moment. “Well, not exactly…”

“ _ Not exactly _ —listen to you,” he chuckles again gruffly, pleased by something. “So. What’s her name?”

We round a bend a little sharper than is safe, the tires crunch over gravel for a second, and Dad raises his hands, mock alarm, though he’s still grinning.

“Woah, okay, we don’t have to talk about it if—”

“Hannibal,” I blurt, face burning.

Silence.

There’s only the soft sound of the radio, and the not quite audible locking of gears in his head.

“ _ Hannibal _ ?” He’s baffled for a second.

“Yes. His name is Hannibal.” I put an emphasis on the pronoun.

“Oh. So he’s—alright.”

I want to glance at him, gauge his reaction, but we’re pulling up into the roundabout, and I use parking as an excuse to not face him just yet. 

Then, to my surprise, he laughs, 

“Shit Will, I’m sorry. I didn’t—I guess I shouldn’t have assumed.”

I kill the engine, and peer at him from under wind-whipped bangs, a hesitant smile growing despite myself.

“ _ Hannibal _ ,” he repeats, wonderment plucking through the syllables. “What a name.”

I nod, run my hands over the steering wheel. Neither of us move to unpack the gear from the backseat.

“So… does he like to fish? What’s he like?”

I laugh, pleased by the image of Hannibal in waders and a vest,

“I dunno Dad. Maybe you should just meet him. He’s uh... hard to describe.”

“Meet him?” his brows shoot up. I take the opportunity to get out, grab the tacklebox and poles. Dad opens his door, leans out, “So it’s pretty serious then.”

He grabs the cooler, and we begin the short hike. 

“Yeah, I guess so.”

I’m smiling like an idiot.  _ I guess so _ . Probably the least accurate thing I’ve said all day. But maybe it’s best to ease into this; I did just spring a lot of information on him, and he’s handling it better than I’d hoped. Better not also dump  _ I’ve met someone I want to spend my life with _ on him in the same day.

“Actually,” I say, turn to him hopefully, “I was thinking about this summer…”


	45. Chapter 45

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

In the night, I can’t sleep and I miss him. The air around me is too still, no soft sounds of another’s sleep, no muffled snores. The sheets do not shift nor tangle, there is no press of body around me, and I am alone, with the air bearing down onto my chest. 

I will be fine, of course, tomorrow, will be better, the day after, perhaps. It will, it must, pass. I have been spending the days with the sword in hand, and that is helping.

_ Suffocation.  _ It freezes the world for me, renders me stuck in the twisted whirl of limbo, no man’s time, neither forward, nor backwards. The present stirred with gouts of the past, all of it viscous around me, forcing my limbs still, catching my mind. I cannot escape. Future is but a distant dream. Though it helps to have the distraction of exercise, the fond presence of my Aunt. It is not enough. Just as being with Will was not enough. 

I rise. Wander like a ghost from my bed, the sheets barely rumpled, scarcely shifted from where I had pulled them across me and then lain sleepless. There is no indent on the mattress, there is no sign of life, it is par for the course for me, at this very moment. Only the faintest hint of a trace I had been there at all. Vicious raging violence stirs up through my throat, longs to rip the covers away, mangle and shred them, destruction until it is perfectly clear  _ I  _ have been there.

_ I was in that bed _ , I want to scream at fabric, _ I  _ altered it. 

But I refrain. 

_ and again. _

But I do not have the energy, the rage dying as quickly as it lifts, fading out of me into the usual emptiness, the momentary burst of color giving way to grey. The emotion dulls in me and then is lost.

A different me would have made his marks. Would have comfortably settled, mussed every blanket, tried every pillow, fussy and stubborn, would have made certain every last aspect was to my liking before closing his eyes... Unperturbed by the world around me. 

_ It is as though I am vanishing. _

My fingerprints never stay, my body fades, every noise I make and every thought are swallowed into this vacuum that I cannot seem to overcome, only to come out of the other side diminuated.  

With Will, in his presence, I could be certain that I had at least not gone completely, some part of me in him, of a different me, of this me, that he keeps and reflects. Some part of me he understands, knows, and when I am with him, I know too. When I am with him, I know who I am, even if I cannot reach it.

I do my best alone. 

_ and again. _

It is terrifying, alone.

The echos of the me who would have turned on every light, strode determinedly towards wherever he was going, thought of no one and nothing but his own desires and whichever ones he held near, ring loud in my ears as I pad silently towards the bathroom. A faint motion of my fingers to turn the light up dimly, a pause, and then angrily, angry at the stilted almost light, raise it bright enough that I wince.

I have made that change, I remind myself. I have caused it. I am here. 

_ Am I?  _

The mirror in the bathroom is large, stretches from the near wall to the far, reflects opulently the image of the room, casts its honest truths back and the honest truth is that I have avoided looking at it. And when I do, I shade it out with memory, see an image long gone, instead of the one that is before me in this reality.  But I miss him. In the night, I can’t sleep, and I miss him. And so I have to try.

I look at myself, raise my chin and appraise. I am fine, largely, a little thin, perhaps, a sign of wear, here and there around the edges, but are we not all worn? My eyes are sparkling, my hair is neat. I see no noticeable cause for concern.  Only the bags under my eyes, which of course, I know must be there, because I know I have not slept. They darken even with the thought. There, yes, the lack of sleep the major flaw, all else...Not at its most refined perhaps, but largely passable.

_ and again. _

I drag my gaze up, harsh breath caught, for a moment, away, and then back again. Straight, forcibly, the way I had forced myself to stay and hear his thoughts. I look at myself. At first for a fleet, the reality of my reflection blinks back at me, but then without warning, it shifts, and it is a me designed to my exacting specifications. My skin the color I know it ought to be, warmed by the sun I have not seen properly in weeks, my weight restored, the sheen of soft lamps bright in my hair, eyes sparkling, mischievous, knowing. Only the bags beneath them, which I logically acknowledge must be there and would ruin the illusion to forget, surface.

_ Am I here?  _

I watch it for a moment, and it watches me, and then with a small shift of my chin down, though my eyes stay up, the pieces of the mask fall slowly, shatter at the seams and dash themselves away. I morph into the truth I am doing my best to deny. 

A breath, in, out.  My fingers reaching up the buttons of my sleep shirt and slowly undoing them, hesitant, lingering on each, drawing back as I push them forward, they know I do not want to go where I am leading them, they know I do not want to look at this at all, have no desire to think about it.

It will pass.

_ and again. _

It is not passing, another button falling away, another, until the silk ripples open around my hips and I shrug it off. Pause, and then fold it, lay it neatly across the counter. Order. My order.

It is not passing. I have unlocked their doors, I have let them out, but I have not addressed them. I know it is time.

Again, to my face. It is hollow, the lines of it too sharp, the weight I have lost evident in the contours, beneath the too pale stretches of my sallow skin. My eyes are wide in my face, take up more space than is rightfully theirs on the planes of it, a haunting of ghosts in the murky depths below muted surfaces. They are not glimmering, they are tired, they are drawn, neither engagement nor engaging. 

Light whispers in them only when Will is there. But he is not.

Instead, the phantom wisps of sound come to keep me company. The spirits rising from nowhere and everywhere, rustling, waiting.

Laughter first.

Alana’s laughter, Beverley’s. They are easy together. They are whole together. They are not the sort of normalcy that other people have, that I detest, but despite everything, they have found each other, they reach for each other. 

_ We are fine.  _ I argue mentally.  _ Will and I, Fine. _

_ and again. _

I am jealous. 

Jealous and ugly and broken, Alana’s voice whispering through my ears.

_ But if he gets his way, he’ll go on like this forever, trying to outrun the demons. _

I do not have demons.

_ and again. _

There have only been demons, for me, for a very long time, they line up in the room, twine in and out of each other, threaten to come all at once, but I do not allow them.

_ Go away.  _

_ and again. _

_ One at a time.  _

The thought curves my lip into a snarl. I bare my teeth at myself, the clench of fingers to keep them from slamming into glass. Break the mirror so I do not have to see me at all. 

But then I will be gone as I have feared. 

Lose myself to them. Lose him to them. Lose everything. 

I am doing this now. It will be done now and then it will have happened, and on the other side of the bridge, across the span of space where I stop and meet them, I will be stronger, or I will be gone, but at least I will know. I force myself forward, as I have always been capable of doing.

_ Freak.  _

It comes whispering around me in one voice, in the voice of a Gryffindor I do not know, in the voice of a Slytherin I barely brush in the hall, in the curve of Jack’s lips. In every voice and no voice. In a whisper and a snarl.

I start there, because there is easiest. Impersonal, almost, except that it isn’t. Months of whispers, murmurs and headlines. 

_ They will talk. _

_ and again. _

They talk and it hurts me, presses into me with every line, every murmur. Perhaps, not a singular phrase, no one rendition of  _ devil  _ enough to get below my skin, but as a sum, as a towering mass of ugly laughter and hissed accusations, it rends the layers down, forces in through the cracks, in to me. I cannot stop them talking, I cannot sew their lips shut for them, end the jumping streaks of chemical that make the thoughts that come to glance across me. It is out of my hands, it is out of my power. 

There was a time, once, where I might have been able to. Silence them with a glare, with a narrow of my eyes, but they are as a nest of wasps now, their humming growing louder and louder, and they do not listen to my warnings any longer.

Will’s fists cannot protect me forever.

They know. 

And I know. 

I cannot stop them.

I do not care.

_ Terror. _

_ and again. _

I wish that I could. 

_ What are the standards for students these days? Mentally disturbed Slytherin lashes out. _

It. 

_ Hogwarts houses more than one malice. Insane Fiend hidden amongst classmates. _

Steals away from me. 

_ Unnatural. _

What I need most. 

_ Gone. _

_ Monster. _

The ugliness of speech fades away around me, my eyes trailing across the scar along my neck which juts now, stark and white, against the barren landscape around it, white like the snow, across the defeated slump of my shoulders, they are smaller than I recall, as though they have shrunk. As though  _ I  _ have shrunk.

The garish heat of summer floods the room around me. 

_ “You wand please, Mister Lecter.” _

A look at me as I give it over silently, watch it be tagged and placed in a drawer behind the desk, a potion pushed forward in return. 

I blink at it, and up. 

_ “As a case of misuse of nonverbal magic was reported, we must take all the necessary precautions for while you are outside official custody.” _

_ Binding.  _

My mouth is dry. No one had mentioned this, I want to protest. It is my power, my magic, inherent in me, in the cells of my body,  _ mine _ . But the woman’s gaze is narrow, I can hear her tell me the alternative is Ministry holding. And Jack is sitting in the room, somewhere behind me, gloating, I am certain, preparing  for me to lash out so that he can insist house arrest is not enough.

Beyond the towering walls, my aunt sits, waiting, Will beside her, anxious in the lobby. 

The space between us already is growing in this time, threatening to part us with its insidious push. I am not ready to hasten the process, to allow them to take me away from them. And they need me. Both of them, need me. 

I need them.

_ It will fade on the date of your trial when it is decided. Please drink it, Mister Lecter. _

I choose.

The vial to my lips, the flow of power through me, molten, glowing, brighter and brighter, forced out of every part of me, gathered and corralled, a silent scream from my lips. The last taste of freedom, the last moment of dominance, and then. 

It goes dark inside of me.

All the magic, goes dark inside of me. Panic, for a moment, panicked breaths, the sensation of a missing limb rising as my stomach turns, I reach for that part of me, and it is numb, deadened, no matter how I brush my mind along it.  _ Gone.  _

_ Please.  _ I think desperately.  _ Please, give it back.  _ The air stolen from my lungs, rattling. I am helpless, I am weak. I am trying not to let the tears well, at least that, that much I can manage, but it is pain like I cannot explain. I am maimed, the control taken from me, forced from my fingers, like my pride. And I can do nothing but accept it. For me, it is the worst pain.

_ Indignity  _

I leave the room with a calm face, a thin smile for my aunt, a look at Will. We pause, awkward. 

“Are you—I mean…” He stammers around the words, undecided if his gaze is wanted or not. 

“I am fine.” Exhaled, but I do not draw away when, on a moment of decision, he reaches for my fingers. “They simply took my wand. I will get it back.”

I do not tell him.

I tell myself, that was the worst of it. It will pass, even as it wrenches through me, grates and stings.

But I do not yet know what I know now.

_ I have plenty of indignity to look forward to.  _

I shift myself as the suffocating sun fades down again into the electric hum of bathroom lights, turn, do not allow my eyes to close though they want to and slide my gaze down the line of my spine. Let it tangle into the brand; Will’s kiss is there at first, a layer I can abide by, but it fades quickly, evaporates away under the heat of the ugly scar and cannot save me. 

He cannot save me.

The letters are dark. It burns as I watch it, roars the pain to life, bubbling flesh and searing skin.  _ Marked.  _ I am marked. He is all but gone. But the mark, the  _ possession _ . Lingers. 

Thin, ghostly fingers, come out to touch it and he laughs in my ear.

_ Hannibal.  _

He snuffles the word out, a mind that can only function in the vision of him I carry. And it is me, in the end, who keeps him alive. Possessions of a spirit in life can be haunted by their owners, and though he is not dead, he lurks always around his mark.

_ Really now. I am  _ surprised _ at you.  _

The touch plays around the brand he never had the opportunity to touch, caresses in the ways he had planned to, nails pushed in to see how the color would shift, and then only to stir the embers of ache. He drifts the stroke up to the nape of my neck, falsely soft against the fine hairs there. Teasing, playing,  _ petting _ . Casual ownership. I bend away from him, tilt my body forward, only allow my eyes to glance at the mirror, but there is no escaping, he bends over me, forces me farther. The false heat of his body is against me, the non solidity of his chest. 

A mocking kiss to the juncture of my shoulder and neck, arm slung along my hip. 

_ Moping like this. And after you  _ whined  _ for it to be _ harder _ like the wanton creature you are.  _

Swift yank back, he is inside of me, he is all around me, my body is in suspension, too much, too much sensation, the pain is heating through me, the humiliation too warm, but pleasure comes too, unstoppable, lashes me to my fate. 

I ask him to.

I beg him to.

I scream for reasons unclear.

I only want this to be over. He plays me against myself, forces at first reciprocation, and then culpability. With his thrusts and his teases, his sing songing voice, and the power that he knows he holds, that I could not possibly take from him on my own, he disgraces me. Callously undoes the final stands of what I grasp onto to keep afloat and drowns me into the water.

I do not want to give him this power. He is not important enough, nor clever enough, nor worthy enough, to take it from me. 

But he can, and so he does. 

I fall asleep in his bed and in the end, there is nothing that shames me more. Too exhausted, too aching, all I wish for is peace and an escape into a place I do not have to acknowledge this any longer. What has been taken from me. What I have allowed to be taken from me. More and more and more, that I will allow still.

He drapes himself around me and darkens my rest. The rest of the indignity that comes, that I had thought might end with the taking of my magic, with a wrenching summer, and a trial that never was.

But I have my magic in this moment, have everything, and he pushes me against the tiles of his shower, presses fingers into me, and shows me, still, of my own doing,  I have nothing at all. I give in. It coalesces here, my ability to touch, but not be touched, the loss it associates itself with every time. The way the drag of fingers, the touch of lips, bring me back instantly to this place, this frame of mind, unbearable.

In the mirror his arms trail along the ravenous edges of my ribs, step along my collar bone and crush against my throat. A cackling voice murmurs promise into my ears. 

“ _ You won’t ever get me all the way out.” _

And then I am alone. 

Almost.

Never truly alone. Will beats inside of me.

“ _ You have to be able to walk out that door, Hannibal.”  _

But no matter where I walk they walk with me. 

“ _ This isn’t sustainable.”  _

I know that.

And what he doesn’t say. 

_ But I’ll help you fight. Whenever you’re ready to start.  _

Stop hiding. To fight, there must be something to battle.

And what she does.

_ Sharing the pain always makes it hurt less. _

To share, there must be pain to begin with.

Is there? 

I look at the mirror, is there something to battle, is there pain?

Mason’s touch swirls around me, the taste of my magic severed, the sound of whispers, the control that has been taken and taken and  _ taken _ . 

_ The demons.  _

There must be, I decide. And that is as close to a yes as I am capable.

_ and again. _

Yes.

In determination, I curve into the sheets until they tangle around my legs, fluff the pillow so that when I sink into it, it indents.

Yes.

Yes, there is.

Pain.

There is pain.

_ In me.  _ There is pain. 

_ I. _

I am in pain. Alone. I am in pain, alone, but I cannot do it alone.

I am in pain.

And I need him.


	46. Chapter 46

**Will**

* * *

 

“Will.”

When the sound of it echoes flatly in the room, pierces into the pleasant fog of almost-sleep I’d drifted into while he worked, the scratch of quill and parchment lulling, I am immediately awake. A blink, a shift to sit up in the pool of blankets. I try not to let my mind go immediately to the damp and the dark and hand-shaped marks on cheeks. _We are safe, we are a long way off from that_ , I remind myself as Hannibal’s weight joins mine on the couch.

Something happened over break, I know. I’d come back well-rested, if not quite settled; a little lighter, but still aching to see him. And Hannibal…

There’s been a strange new pacing between us—he wears a determination, a set to his jaw that he’s come to some kind of decision, and I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t set me on edge to not know what that decision is. He had it when we first found each other in the Hall, pushing through the crowd to meet in a clutch of hands, a brief kiss that was far from what both of us wanted. We joined the others, fell into the easy rhythm of laughter, and his hand found mine underneath the table.

And then later, away from the eyes of others, when we fell together, he wore it still. An embrace behind closed doors, he held me tight to him as though we had been apart years and not weeks, and tucked his face against my neck, a soft shuddery breath. The ache of _relief_ , for our limbs to fit together again, the warm smell of his shampoo, and I could feel his pulse matching time to mine.

_I missed you._

And more, something beneath… something changed. He’s looked better than he has in weeks, _happy_ even, on occasion, and it aches to think that something that simple is progress, but the awful truth of it is I don’t think I’d seen him laugh without that shadow crossing him since last spring. Now, with winter all around us, he smiles and it reaches all the way to his eyes, and I watch him, this new development curiously, cautiously.

Still, there are bad days. There are moments when I wake to the press of his thoughts, panicked, fleeting impressions. But we always find each other, and they are becoming fewer and far between.

And now. He watches me with wary eyes and my heart beats like a thing alive. When I clear my thoughts and let the familiar press of his fill me instead, it’s not fear that I find, but some strange, earnest blend of nervousness, anticipation. I look to him, puzzled, even as I lean unconsciously towards him.

“I need to ask something of you,” he says at last, and now his eyes are following the faded floral patterns of the blanket, not me. I swallow.

“Anything.”

And I do mean that. Honestly, as much fear that trickles cold through me at the sound of those words, there’s relief too, that he would ask me to help with anything, after the last months of uncertainty. Months of _I am afraid_ juxtaposed with _it does not matter_.

He purses his lips, thinking, or _bracing_ is maybe more accurate, and his hand follows the path his eyes took, doodling unconsciously.

“I have been unwell.”

Freezing. The words that neither of us have said, neither of us have wanted to acknowledge. They sit here, heavy, and I hold my breath. The late afternoon light touches his cast-down eyes and I fight the urge to reach for him.

“I believe it is better— _I_ am better—than it was, but there are still some things that…”

The words choke, and I steel myself for the coming _it does not matter_ , the shrug of discontent, the return to silence and sullen refusal to acknowledge the dark press of thoughts that have shadowed us since our return to school.

He is there, unmoving, his lips parted on the rest of the thought, and for a moment he looks softer, younger, a shade of the boy he once was in this moment when the words stop. I watch as he grasps for them, and then, almost strangled, he says suddenly,

“...I wish to touch you very much.”

I am still, breathless. I don’t know what the right answer is, what he needs me to say, to be. Of course he can anytime, of course he never has to, and of course, of _course_ I want him to, but he knows all of this already, so I’m silent.

As though to prove his point, he draws a hand up, and my eyes slide closed under the soft touch through my hair. The contented noise from my throat is quiet, _needy_ , and I flush, immediately want to take it back. Afraid that he’ll read too much in it.

“But I am afraid… it is very hard for me to… I cannot—”

Hannibal has very rarely been at a loss for words since the moment he found his voice, but here he stumbles. His hand is warm against my cheek, the familiar rasp of his fingertips stilling as, once again, he struggles for the right words, and I take now to move.

“Hannibal,” my hand comes up, covers his, I turn my face against his palm and press lips there, “What do you need?”

Something like relief softens the line that was building between his brows, but he doesn’t answer right away and I am afraid for a second that I’ve ruined the diatribe, I’ve said the wrong thing and now we’ll have to start over.

But his hand—

His hand slides down to press at my chest, and I follow the suggestion of the motion, let him lean me back against the covers. He shifts too, a quick motion and he’s above me, our noses almost brushing. Every part of me that’s pressed to him, his weight, the warmth of our bodies in the spaces between us, it’s all bright, too sudden; I _want_ , and my cheeks flood with heat at how easily the feeling comes over, an embarrassed mumble that’s lost in the shrinking space between our lips. There suddenly doesn’t seem to be enough air in the room, or at least I’m not getting much into my lungs.

He stops just short of kissing me, and the proximity crackles with potential. His eyes are heavy on me, and I watch them roam over my face, rest for a long moment on my mouth. My heart is loud against my ribs now, a stammering beat that I’m sure he can hear, and I lick my lips, conscious of the attention, a little nervous suddenly, despite my comfort with him. He watches every flicker of pulse, each shaky breath that I try unsuccessfully to steady.

“I need you to stay still.”

It’s not what I expected, but once he says it, I nod—I did say _anything_ after all. A smile, to show him I don’t know where this is going, but I don’t mind, I trust him, and I trace my finger in an X over my chest. Over the heart that’s trying to escape.

His eyes scrunch into one of those little smiles, and there’s maybe even a trace of wickedness there, a playfulness that’s been absent from him for some time.

And when his fingers find my skin, all other thoughts disappear. We are alone in this gold world of stone and sun, and he traces my cheek, down throat and chest and ribs, his touch is the single point of light against my night sky, the only place where I am real. At some point, without direction, I rest my arms above my head, clasp my hands together, and he seems genuinely amused by the motion. He drags knuckles up my stomach, my shirt coming with them, and I shiver.

“Take this off,” he orders, and I have never in my life been so quick to comply. The low rumble of command in his voice warms my cheeks, coils up the length of my spine. The shirt is gone, torn off in a hurry that leaves me trapped and struggling in the sleeves for a moment before I fling it somewhere, totally uncaring of whether or not I will find it again later.

It’s barely off when he lowers himself to his elbows, and his lips brush the skin between my belly button and waistband. When I gasp his name, it’s sharp, accompanied by a startled jerk that I am completely powerless to stop.

He looks up, eyes dark despite the soft glow of sunset that drapes him in orange and pink.

“Stay. Still.” he reminds me, the words ghosting warm across my skin, teasing, but a more serious current of almost-fear beneath. But when I nod, hurriedly, a smile plays across his lips. Lips that are pressed to me again, a sound that I close my mouth on a second too late, and he traces them back up the path his fingers just followed, pauses only once to drag teeth lightly, pull another startled gasp from me.

It’s like this for a time, until my nerves are strung tight, over-sensitive, pleasure lighting with each new touch. I am the landscape that he maps with his teeth, his tongue, the pads of his fingers, and it’s almost as though I am new to his hands. In many ways I am. I am aching, I am crying out, I am his. Terribly and completely. And he, with his reverent lips against my skin, he is mine just as much.

He rises over me, our lips once again close enough to brush. My breath is coming raggedly and his eyes are heavy-lidded and hungry. There is, blessedly, no trace of fear there when I reach for it.

“Stay still,” he reminds me, barely more than a whisper, and this time it’s less of a command than a plea. The desire to arch up and close the space between us, to press _him_ into the pillows beneath me is humming painful through my veins, but I only nod breathlessly.

And then he kisses me. It’s too soft at first, a slow agony, but then it builds and the moan of relief that seems too loud to be my own is muffled between us, his tongue presses into me, hands guiding my chin up into it. It’s a dizzy rhythm and I move to match him, but all the while let him lead. This is, afterall, his dance. And without him I am lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Close to Nowhere"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqDUSdLruZQ) by Band of Skulls is probably in my top ten favorite songs of all time, and it was the song I was listening to while writing this chapter.  
>  Also, a fun but totally irrelevant fact: I wrote this and the next two chapters while camping at Salt Point with [cognomen.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen) I was dirty and exhilarated from hiking, and could smell the ocean below, and I think it just made a good atmosphere for scribbling in my at this point well-loved AMOI notebook. I highly recommend the woods for waking the muses :)


	47. Chapter 47

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

_ I lost my power.  _

The words murmur into the air around us, surround, fall soft across the dreamy spread of cotton sheet and afternoon sun. The room transforms for us, around us, even, sometimes, as we move together. It all twists into air, and light, and noise. 

Only he is real. And when I touch him. 

I am also.

We sneak away at the nod of my head, the unvoiced signal, decided without decision.

He is bare on the bed before me, though I am dressed, his sweater peeled away, the rest of the fabric undone and set aside. Not neatly, a daring headiness to pulling the articles from his body, from him myself and then allowing them simply to fall. A breathless laugh, an inch recaptured. My measure of control over chaos or order, and though I treasure order, sometimes I decide against. 

He had smiled at me, knowing as he does, even if the details are not exact, that it is a victory. Ground gained, a stitch pulled to close the wound. Soft smile and an acquiescence, waiting, where I’d left him for my touch to return. And when it did, following its gentle push, lids shutting as I bid him to, closed eyed, but aware, aware of everything, aware of me, and his hands brace beneath his head. Though that I do not ask, merely take on the faith that he wreaks, that he will not touch me.  

Reclined, he is, relaxed, it would seem, at rest, but his heart beats fast in his chest. The gasp of caught breaths as my teeth scrape along the curves of his body. Our own sort of healing.

_ In the spring, my magic was stolen, and I lost my power.  _

There is no response, today, to these proclamations, but the sound absorbs, and he captures it, between us here, in this room, in these moments, and tucks it away. I tell him because he deserves to know. Because it would be as a wall between us forever, if I did not, a wall around me. And he has climbed all the rest of them, he does not deserve one anew. 

I tell him, because I have promised us both to try. In halting shears of speech amidst peppered kisses and the languid movement of my tongue to make him squirm. I tell him in segments and metaphors, in whirls of nonsensical words and the touch of my lips. 

I tell him, because he both already knows and does not yet.

Beneath me, he squirms, but does not touch. 

I know he will not.

_ In the summer, my peace was stolen, and I lost my power. _

Perhaps it would seem to someone who did not understand, who could not see, that there is nothing traded here between us. That he simply lies, and I simply kiss. 

But it is not as such. I shift back his hair in slow pull, to kiss along his forehead, the barest of strains, and he only breathes. Chin tilted up to me, serenity. 

On the bed, bare, before me, the glistening brush of late winter sun along his collarbone, shading the hollows of his neck, and alighting along his lashes, he is as a god. To me, he is always as a god, the only one I would bend knee before. And like a god, the power surges inside of him. So clear to me, trapped in his bones, wrapped around his cells, in every twist of his breath.

Behind my eyes, in the dreams that do not turn sour, I taste the kiss of his wrath, the lightening of his fury, destroyer and savior as his fingers shred memories and end a life, reclaim mine. Ruin with savage butchery, the fingers that touched what was not theirs to touch, turns to salt the eyes that gazed upon what they should not see. 

On the bed, bare, before me, I ask for stillness but once and he is mine. The power, beneath my touch, mine, the vengeance, mine, the life that saved mine, mine. He could deny me, I quietly marvel, still, even weeks after we have begun this dance, as I surround a peaked nipple with my mouth, suck to hear the rising hiss from his throat. Could ask for answers I am not yet ready to provide, instead of this game we play, where I set up the board and drop pieces of the puzzle into his grasp as they come. Demand the words in full sentences, well punctuated, and elegantly phrased instead of the jumble of fragments that turn to a series of commas and semicolons that only ramble meaninglessly on.

He could pull away disgusted that I cannot bear to let his fingers so much as tighten along my arm, but ask him to stay frozen as I consume him. 

_ In the autumn, I simply surrendered it.  _

     The wind blows along the pane of window, and I kiss him, a curve of heat rising between us.

          The sun moves along the sky, in arch, meaningless time passes.

_               and you saved me.  _

                   My fingers draw whimpers from his lips.

_ But. _

He speaks.

_ But you lost it all the same. _

 

And in the stillness he gives me, in the arch of his shoulders at the pleasure I create in him, in the hungry murmur for more, in the way he longs for my touch and for me, in the power that he gives, that he makes mine. 

In all of that—

_ And in the winter?  _

His voice is ragged from gasped breaths, growled down low, lips kiss swollen and lovely. For a breath, I am myself only, no memories of scarlet sifting down from his skull, nor his twisted cries. 

The pain of a lock holding the door shut between us. 

The creep of unwanted fingers.

Every time I kiss him pliant, taste the familiar flavor of him, the comfort, the love, and beneath, the conflagration that lives. The breath lasts longer. 

_ In the winter,  _

I whisper against his lips, twist low to press my body against his, where all the angles fit together, curl against the heat of him. I am dressed and he is bare. His fingers twine behind his head, and I cannot be touched. Somewhere, though they are pushed far, the memories wait to return. It is not perfect. 

But.

_ In the winter, we take it back. _


	48. Chapter 48

**Will**

* * *

 

Spring is still a long way off; the castle stands austere and dark in a covering of ice, but there is an occasional day like today—of thawing, of weak sunlight and the steady drip of snowmelt from walls that have seen a thousand years. It begs exploring, after so long stuck inside, the faintest traces of that wet, green, scent on the wind. It feels very appropriate, as there is the shift to spring, of newness and growth in the soft looks Hannibal and I share, the easy rhythm we’ve found after so much treading on ice.

Not to say there’s not still the odd step back. An occasional flinch from touch, an out of place solemnity in a moment of peace. Sometimes I wonder, if I’d killed Mason, would he would live less in the spaces between us, or more? Sometimes I long for a way to cut him out, out of me, and out of Hannibal, clean in just a sweep of word, so I never have to watch Hannibal leave a room with that flutter of unease in my chest. Hairline cracks. 

But none of that now; classes are over for the day, and it’s nice out for once, and I can’t spend another second cramped in my dormitory for the time being. And so I find myself with Bev, perched somewhat recklessly on the rough-hewn edge of the North Tower, a bag of jelly beans open between us. Our feet dangle over the long drop to the courtyard below.

“Fuck. The cherry ones are bad luck, I swear,” Bev curses, already reaching for another one, “I missed that kid by like two inches.”

I consider the yellow speckled one in my hand, the fourth year walking briskly through the danger zone, where our previous attempts dot the slushy ground. Bev too, is eyeing him, but he’s moving pretty quickly, and she rolls the candy once in her fingers before apparently deciding, with a shrug, that it’s not worth it. She pops it into her mouth.

“Ugh,” she spits it out into her hand, nose scrunched, “not cherry. Raddish.”

I laugh, amusement rolling through me warm and easy as the breeze that ruffles my hair, and she drops the offending, half-chewed sweet into the slush below, where there’s now a small multi-colored sprinkling of them. Like confetti, but gross.

“Maybe if you’d stop eating our ammo,” I chide, even as I risk one, but before she can answer, I grab her arm, draw a finger to my lips. Crawford has just stepped into the far side of the courtyard, papers in one hand, steaming mug of what I suspect to be spiked coffee in the other. 

“Give me a bad one,” I whisper, hand out, and as soon as I feel it, I fling it with all my strength.

To no purpose, though; it whizzes past him by several inches and he doesn’t even look up from his papers.

“Pshh, that’s why you’re not on the quidditch team,” Bev says with a smirk. “Watch this.”

I do, under the watery sun, I watch her hold one out lightly, squint an eye and stick her tongue out. Fondness curls my lips into a smile, and I wonder if making that face really helps her aim. I’m about to ask her when he walks just beneath us, and she lets it drop, and oh my god there’s no way that it—

It plops directly into his mug. I can’t believe it. He doesn’t even look up, and my stunned laughter is drowned out when she flings her arms into the air, an equally disbelieving but altogether triumphant shout heaving from her lungs,

“FUCK YEAH, TEN POINTS FOR RAVENCLAW!”

And although he didn’t bat an eye when the candy seasoned his drink, Crawford looks up at that, squinting against the mid-winter sun, and fear flops my stomach over.

“Katz?” he roars, “Get  _ down _ from there.”

But I’ve already fallen back into the safety of the tower, sides aching with laughter, and I’m yanking Bev by the shirttail until we’re both collapsed, slumped against the stone. I’d be lying if I said I’m not downright giddy at the thought of Crawford’s next sip of coffee tasting mysteriously a lot like vomit.

“He’s gonna kill you,” I inform her, laughter still threading through my voice. She sighs, pushes herself upright, and slides a hand through her hair. Hair she’s taken to wearing loose, these days.  _ Curiouser and curiouser… _

“Yeah, probably. If he puts two and two together,” she snorts, “he’s not exactly the most perceptive guy on the planet.”

I laugh, louder than I probably need to. Oh, if only she knew. 

“Oh well,” I sigh, knowing before I say it that my carefully affected casual tone isn’t going to fool her, “I guess we would’ve had to quit soon anyway… I’m supposed to meet Hannibal before the apparation lesson.”

She doesn’t say anything, so I give in and look over at her, a perfect mask of bland—

She’s watching me with a loud smirk, her brows raised knowingly.

“What?” I ask, shifting to sit up so she’s not looking down at me. I can feel the hot creep of a flush starting in my cheeks.

“Oh yeah, we’ve got a whole hour,” she says, and I sense the teasing laced thick in her words, “better not waste it when you guys could be sucking face in the Room of Requirement.”

My spluttered protests are lost under her delighted laughter, but she puts her hands up placatingly.

“Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t help it. You just blush so damn easy.”

A beat, and a flicker of something else under her mirth, wire disguised in cotton.

“I’m actually really glad for you guys—I know things have been tough, but you seem... better. He seems better. And you’re both,” she chews her lip, looking for the right word, “very  _ affectionate _ as of late.”

“I don’t know  _ what _ you’re talking about,” I answer loftily, but I don’t even make it through the sentence with a straight face, the wavering in my voice gives way to a laugh. I look across from us, at how the skeletal tops of trees peek just over the opposite wall. 

The brush of cold fingers at my neck, yanking my collar down, surprises a yelp out of me, and I pull away helplessly, but she’s laughing again,

“Oh yeah?  _ No _ idea what I’m talking about, Hickey MgGee?”

Oh god. I’d completely forgotten. I think I’ve done a fair job of hiding the small livid marks to this point, but the air had been so nice today, and my collar so tight, and I hate ties as a rule, so I’d undone the top few buttons…

“Oh, those,” I say, grinning despite myself.

“Oh, those, he says.” She rolls her eyes.

“Hannibal is just… enthusiastic,” I say, biting my lip on a smile I can’t quite tuck away. I run a hand over my neck self-consciously—they can’t really be  _ that _ obvious, can they?—and try not to remember the hot feeling of Hannibal’s mouth as he sucked them into my skin a few days ago. Or the gasp of his breath over the sensitive mark as I gripped the covers tight.

Enthusiastic is maybe not quite the right word for the hungry way he looked at me as I stammered his name.

Neither can it describe the way my hands found him finally,  _ greedily _ , when he’d sighed  _ touch me _ between our lips. Permission and command all at once, they drew a chill through me, it was like I’d been waiting for those words my whole life, and the moment they’d fallen across my skin, I complied almost helplessly.

“Besides,” I tell Bev with a quirk of a brow, playfulness making me bold, “you should see where  _ he’s _ got marks right now.”

“Oh wow,” she groans, shaking her head, “that’s an image I’ll definitely never be able to scrub from my eyes; thanks, asshole.”

“Hey, you asked,” I dig, pleased to have turned the conversation around. There’s a pause, where we both sigh against the warm stirring of breeze, then I nudge her shoulder.

“You leaving any marks of your own?”

She blinks, and for a second I think I’ve managed to catch her off-guard, but the moment is flickering and brief, disappears under a cool grin.

“That’s an image I have no intention of leaving you with.”

A decided lack of a  _ no _ , I notice, and beyond that, she doesn’t need to tell me. The sudden turn of her thoughts is sharp enough that it pulls me with it, warm and languid for a moment, before I tug my mind back, away from thoughts of stormy nights and Alana’s breathless encouragements.

“ _ But _ ,” she adds, surprising me, “If I were, I would at least be smart enough not to leave them where you’d see them.”

It’s nice to share secrets, I think, and not-so-secrets, to just talk with her as though it was the most natural and easy thing in the world. I breathe deeply, and feel no weight, for the first time in a long time. No shadows.

And I think, as our conversation lulls, that I will go find Hannibal. An hour goes very quickly, after all.


	49. Chapter 49

**Hannibal**

* * *

**** I sit amidst the budding flowers, the sky stretching blue above me, legs crossed beneath me, arms by my side, and close my eyes. Solemn ritual.

Inhale, exhale.

It is a game we play. My game, Will’s uncertainty palpable, though fading with every round, but he would not deny, not even at the start. Better to grow in a game, press against the last vestiges of fear, than let them linger in the dark corners. Throw illumination into the whole. To healing, I have committed, even through the aches of a knitting wound.

The wind kisses my cheeks.

It is a trust game. But played with touches instead of falls.

In the peripheries of my senses, he moves, shifts amidst the smooth brush of the breeze in the leaves, scents between the coolness of air, the bare drifts of his warmth, of familiarity, entwining with the earthiness of nature. I know he is close because I sense the pull of his mind, because I can envision the shape of his body, the lines of his face, but I do not know exactly and he does not indicate.

At the beginning of the games, this was enough for me to end it. The uncertainty. Enough to send my eyes pressing open, aborting before even beginning, clenched unease in my chest. But now. Now I simply sit and breathe with the beat of the world around me, the slowly wakening growl of creature from winter sleep, the pulse of my heart, and somewhere in my orbit, Will’s. I am content with the rays across my cheek, with the knowledge that he will reach for me, and we will twine, though I do not know exactly how or where, nor when. And that knowledge not possessed is unbothersome. He possesses it. And we are here, together. That is enough.

_When do you win?_ He had murmured in my ear, when we had climbed to _five_ and I slit my eyes to find sun, to reach back and reclaim, unable to surrender myself to darkness any longer. And I without having considered exactly, replied with a lingering kiss. _Let us count to ten._ And then ten it became. Useful, to have a goal when one is playing to win. Though arbitrary in the reality of the universe, in the shared plains of our mind, as real as anything else. So easy, to kiss him ten times, to share ten touches, even to allow him to scrape his teeth against me for as many instances, but to live in the spaces behind my eyes, to not know precisely, it sheds into sharp relief, the weakness still inside of me.

A touch to my hand, and my lips quirk, easy, _cheating_ , but it is not so long ago it would have been barely tolerable, and so instead.

_One._

The race of my pulse quickens as we connect, but it is not fear that hastens it. The beauty of the touch without sight, the callouses in the press of his hand that I feel against my wrist, the curve of his knuckles as they graze against me. The scent of him is more vivid, the swirl of curiosity, laughter, and love. Embers of desire stirring.

_I love him._

Pressure on my opposite shoulder. A breath, we pause, to press through the moment together, to feel out the breadth of the touch, the expansion of his fingers as my lungs fill and move me into his palm. _Welcome,_ my body decides and I relax, the solid heat of his body hovering somewhere just inches from mine. A rustle, the drop of weight, and I know he is kneeling in the grass before me. So much I know without sight. Easing, every reminder of that. The practiced honing of the rest of my senses.

_Two._

The fingers on my wrist drag up.

_Three_

And then

_Four._

When they persist to find my shoulder, dig in slow exploration of the bone there, spread for a moment and continue on, and accidental

_Five._

As he nudges my ankles with his knee, and my legs uncross automatically, the whisper of his intent across my brain, draw open to let him closer without second thought, so the arm can continue its journey over the contour of my body, sling in a half hug, the other hand still bracing opposite, and then he is closer too.

We press into _six_ with a shock of breath, exhaled from me, in half pleasure and half surprise, chin back in a shuddering gasp, as his head comes to rest against my chest, cheek pressed against the wool of my school sweater, thin and grey, and I wish in that moment that it was gone.

He stills there, at six, in the traversal of territory not yet visited, and listens to the way the thrums of my heart rush for him. I fancy I can feel the shift of his mouth into a smile as he finds no fear in the stutters of rhythm and the missed beats. Only the way he makes me breathless.

There are no rules for or against touching back, they remain unwritten, and I write them now, as I blindly shift my arm up to press him closer, the tops of his curls soft and unruly beneath my chin as I tilt it, find with knowledge well written into me, the edges of him and pull us closer, his arm curves to hold me better, his fingers on my other side, twist into my shirt.

The intimacy of breath should be terrifying, but it is only staggering in the most tremendous of ways.

He tilts himself against me without breaking the spell, new motion—

_Seven._

And our lips are meeting languid, and I have forgotten that my eyes are closed, that not a week ago, I might have felt the feverish stab of certain panic, the desire to abort, to end, and retreat. To hide away from the uncertainty and the maddened emotion. I have forgotten everything but the way my mouth opens to the press of him, and his tongue darts along me and inside me and we are twined.

Melted together, his clutching hand making good use of the handful of fabric to drag me closer. My own finding the small of his back.

_Eight._

The arm slung around me bends, finds its way into my hair, tangling, almost yank, soft and then a tease, and down my cheek, lingers, as I nuzzle into it, climbs over my lips, to trace them, gentle. A slight push, with a laugh. I part them for a moment, lap light against the tips, and with a groan, his, mine, they are gone.

_Nine._

Both hands are on me. One against my heart, the other against my shoulder and they flatten, and I am his, his forehead against mine. There is some kind of wind up, and it tenses me for the barest hair of second, but then his lips are on me again and I forget to be worried at all.

He pushes and we tumble, a shift in equilibrium, a surprise altering of the center of my gravity as we suspend for what is only a second, but behind my lids, dances for an infinity. Daring, for us both, and for the second, where he shifts me and I trust him, we are flying, wrapped up in each other. In the blurring of ourselves and our touch, infinite, everywhere and nowhere.

And then with a huff of my own chuckle, surprised, pleased, and not even minutely distressed, the grass finds me, and he holds me. Atop me. I have not yielded.

_Ten._

A fall of sorts then, for victory, after all. My body sprawled against the grass, loose limbed and smiling. The air is cool, still, but I am surrounded by fire which sears and burns me, but doesn’t ache.

“You’re beautiful.”

He whispers in my ear so soft, that I fear it is only the wind, but when I open my eyes slow, he is there, adoration, triumph, delicious pleasure. He bends as I surge, and we tumble together along the waves of grass.


	50. Chapter 50

**Will**

* * *

 

It’s safe to say, I think, that my current cold, soaked through state is completely and one hundred percent Bev’s fault. If she hadn’t dropped her stupid scarf somewhere along the path to Hogsmeade, we would never have had to double back, in the rain, to look for it. We would have long been warm and content, drinking butterbeer and letting our clothes dry, but instead we all sprinted madly through the pound of sudden spring rain. That I was laughing between breaths, or that the wet clothes gave me the perfect excuse to sneak cold hands under Hannibal’s coat, is completely besides the point.

And it’s not, of course, as though we had fully intended to walk on, past the village proper and down drizzly avenues anyways. No, that was definitely because of the cold, clinging feeling of my jeans, the sneaking tendrils of slush in my socks. Not planned at all. Bev’s fault.

“We’ll catch up later.”

And she’d exchanged a look with Alana, a look that said very clearly  _ yeah, sure _ , but they’d grinned, maybe planning some secret sharing of their own.

We’re lucky, I guess, that the cottage lies empty now, only a short, chilly walk away. It’s eerie looking, this summer place, in the gray cold trickle of rainfall. The trees in the garden are just budding, little shocks of green against a pale sky. The wildness is fitting, I think, the pleasant, winding trails we had kept so lovely now overgrown, the sage and lemon thyme reaching for us when I tug Hannibal’s sleeve, pull him into a kiss, a spot of warmth and color that blooms, spreads roots through my being.

“Will,” he murmurs, laughing softly, “we are mere feet from the door, do you think you could possibly—”

And, obstinate, I pull him back to me, to taste surrender there while the rain paints our skin with cold.

Surrender that’s short-lived. A growl and he moves too quickly for reaction, hoists me up and I am carried, protesting, through the door, am dumped unceremoniously to the floor just beyond the threshold.

“You’ll be the death of me,” he announces as he locks the door behind us—I note the precaution with a subtle pang of loss, of times when such a thing would not have even occurred—but he can’t hide his smile, the fond crinkle of his eyes. I stand, noticing guiltily the puddle that’s growing around me, rainwater warping into the hardwood floor. A groan.

“Nah, but your aunt might be, if we ruin her summer home.” I toe my shoes off gingerly, but there’s not much hope for it, the mud already spread.

A thoughtful look crosses his features, strange, as he regards the entry hall, the ghostly shapes of furniture covered for the season.

“ _ My _ summer home. Technically.” he muses, his gloves, then coat stripping off.

“... _ Your _ …?” I fail to understand.

“Now that I’m of age, yes. It was my parents’,” next his shirt, peeled from a frame that is, though still slim, much less fragile-looking than it had been, and pants, slap to the floor in a heap. “Not that it changes anything; I have little use for it at present, and Lady Murasaki does enjoy it.”

He gathers the pile in his arms, down to just a pair of clinging, dark briefs, and pads through the adjoining hall. 

“Your summer home,” I huff to myself, incredulous. Of course it is.

“Well,” his voice echoes back. The sound of pans clanging interrupts him, a slight grunt of lifting something heavy, “little use, except for in moments such as this.”

I hear a flame coming to life next, as I struggle out of the last of my clothes, stumbling a little. And then, completely bemused, I follow him into the kitchen. 

As soon as I cross into the tiled room, he turns from his place in front of the old-fashioned hearth, a twinkle of amusement in the look he gives me.

“So, on the subject of the floor,” a flick of his wand arm, and my clothes are pulled from my grasp, fly to hang on the line above the old stone oven.

“Show-off,” I grumble at the unnecessary flaunting of his ability to use it freely, but he ignores me, goes on,

“...I suppose it’s  _ my  _ forgiveness you’ll have to ask for. Technically.”

I laugh, disbelieving, at the utter whimsy of his mood today, and step closer. It’s cold, despite the first tendrils of warmth from the fire, the heat of his gaze. My skin is raised into goosebumps as I stand before him in just my boxers.

“Do I have to beg?”

Now it’s my turn to color my tone with teasing, I regard him with narrowed eyes, hands finding his hips, but make no move yet. He’s utterly impassive, but for the subtle shift of his throat as he swallows, his lips part.  _ I _ see the signs. But I have spent a long time learning them. I kiss him, featherlight and fleeting, and when I pull away his mouth finds air for a moment, still seeking. I grin; I like that.

“Perhaps,” he says cooly, catches my lips, but I dance away again, make him come to me, and a frustrated sound rumbles from his chest, “It would certainly not hurt.”

I watch the impatient flicker of his gaze, gauging it for the signals I’ve become accustomed to catching. I find nothing there, but curiosity,  _ want _ , heavy-lidded comfort. The steady thrum of our connection is molten, but calm. 

The window above the sink lets in just enough cool gray light to see him, to watch every shift of expression as, slowly, I sink to my knees in front of him.

“Please,” I murmur, carefully constructed sincerity filling my tone as I look up at him, the fire in the hearth behind us warming my back. His gasp is almost imperceptible, but it’s loud to me, his hand coming slowly to rest in my hair. I press lips to the jut of his hip, then the dip just beneath, my tongue pressing just enough to make my intention known. “Please, Hannibal. Forgive me.” The words are quiet, my lips brushing his skin, and his hand tightens incrementally.

The crackle of fire, the murmur of rain outside, and his eyes dark on me, they all fill the moment as I slide the last of his clothes from his hips. And I grin to myself, because although I am the one with the cold stone against my knees, we both know it is far from a surrender. Surrender is the sound that I draw from him next, a soft, surprised exhale, his hands moving to grip the counter behind him. Surrender is in every breath and touch that follows for the next length of rainy afternoon, while the kettle of water he’d set to boil goes forgotten and the storm roars outside. It’s in the broken sound of my name from his lips, and, in the end, it’s not  _ me _ who’s saying please.

And yet, it is, in every motion, the acknowledgment of power; his, mine, and that strange other force that governs us both, makes us more than we could ever be apart. 

_ Love _ , I think, as we sink to the floor together, a tangle of pleased and heavy limbs. To that, we are both helpless.

“...Have any other secrets I should know about?” I ask, warm in the circle of his arms. He makes a soft noise in his chest that might be a laugh.

“Why, so you may desecrate their kitchens as well?”

Not an answer, I note. I smile, press my face to his chest, mimic his crisp, polite tone,

“Perhaps.”

The look he shoots me is meant to be aggravated, I’m sure, but he’s too drowsy and content to commit to it fully, and his mussed hair ruins the overall effect somewhat too. I untangle myself from him, stand and stretch before  _ languid _ becomes  _ sleepy _ . While I can think of many uses for the floor, sleeping on it seems like one of the least appealing options.

There’s still some water left in the kettle, despite most of it having steamed away, and so I find two porcelain cups in one of the cupboards, set the tea he’d evidently been planning on making earlier to steep.

His arms circle around me from behind, and I smile, sighing happily as his palms smooth warm over my chest.

“We should be studying,” he says, voice rough against my neck. My brow furrows, and when I, almost absentmindedly, reach for his thoughts, I find a subtle twist of anxiety, bitter against the low sweet constant of contentment, of pleasure only recently fled. It is historically unlike him to stress about a test, and confusion drips steady into the cocktail of emotions at play.

“Only weeks until exams,” he adds, pressing a kiss to my neck, “It will go quickly.”

Ah.

Understanding comes in a rush, and I turn in his arms, offer him one of the softly steaming cups.

“Mhm. And then summer, before we know it.” I say, casual, take a sip of the sweet, mulled flavor. He doesn’t drink, but looks at the teacup as though answers might be found in it.

“Yes… and then summer.”

The statement is so terribly small, I have to take pity on him, my mouth twisting guiltily. I set the cup on the counter, turn away so he won’t see the expression, under the pretense of checking on my clothes.

“Yeah,” I say, finding my sweater, at least, warm and dry. It comes down from the line with some tugging. “But you’ll like Louisiana, I think.”

I’m pulling the shirt over my head so, regrettably, I miss the statement’s impact on him. But when I grin over my shoulder, checking my jeans now, he’s still standing where I left him, blinking under the ever dimmer light from the window, the orange of fire.

“You can try some comfort food, we’ll take the car out,” I go on, stepping into my only slightly damp jeans, “maybe even a boat—”

He’s behind me suddenly, I can feel him although he doesn’t touch me, not yet, and I turn, watching him curiously.

“I hope you are not teasing,” he says quietly, “because it’s not a very funny joke.”

I can’t help the urge to touch, cup his face in my hands, at the desperate sound of his voice.

“Hannibal,” I laugh, “It’s not a joke; it’s been worked out for months. I asked Lady M before break, you’re coming home with me.”

He kisses me, hard, and I feel all that fierceness of feeling in it, the sharp sound of his breath and the clutch of relief in his hands, digging in my shirt, pulling me closer. I return it, the push and pull of our connection, get too quickly lost in it.

“You should have told me,” he growls, and I smile, kiss him again.

“I wanted to surprise you.”

He laughs, a giddy, disbelieving huff, and presses his forehead to mine, clutches my face between his hands.

“You are always that.”

Surprising. I suppose there are worse things. By the time we leave the cottage to meet the others, hand in hand, the rain has stopped and the sky is a perfect, dusky purple, the first stars peeking out.  


	51. Epilogue

**Hannibal**

* * *

 

Journal,

It is not the end of the year I had expected, when this year had begun. 

Not even remotely.

And though the once forgone walls of prison, stifling and empty, seem endlessly far as we laugh together, wine procured, a large blanket spread across the green lawn, still full of spring life, early summer sun hazy in the sky, and the dark dungeon rooms of another place, miles of aches and memories away, do not lurk close to us at present, as Will curls up against me, sleepy and lazy limbed—Bev’s head resting on my stomach, Alana’s body tucked close to hers, their hands twined—hair spread in a brilliant shimmering sheet, tangling shades together, I do not forget them, not fully. 

A part of me is trapped there, in those places that I have visited this year, names twining through my mind, magic electric along my skin… And when my eyes fall onto Will’s face, now and again, I see him as he was, in that moment, crackling fury, unrepentant righteousness—a fount of power the awes me and draws me. That I crave for in quiet moments, all at once. 

I know, and he knows, and we know together, what has happened between us, and there is no one in the world, but the pair of us that can ever understand. 

And sometimes, in the quiet moments, all at once, he finds my gaze, and I think he too, sees.

But we do not speak of the charge that fills us then, the way it dries my mouth. I do not bring name to the sensation, and the seconds of unreality where we are suspended again, in a dreamlike place, where our brains scream in their connection and our bodies sing for blood, brush away to the constancy and chatter of our lives. 

I do not know why they visit exactly, as we are happier than we have been in months, but with healing comes a new sort of unease that I attempt to shelve, a discomfort of normalcy, now that normalcy is normal again. A sensation other than what I had felt upon return from  _ there,  _ not the kind that draws from without, but from within. Despite the leaps and bounds we have come, something in me remains unsettled. Something, ticking, yearns. 

I do not welcome it nor run from it. Ponder it in quiet wonder when it dawns, treasure the moments that trail in its wake. 

“Sometimes you think really loudly.” He accuses with slight slur and I tip my gaze to smile down at him, let his body twist in my grasp to edge his way up so our faces are level. Bev makes a sound of protest from her doze, displeased with sudden movement. 

Grumbles something like. “Sometimes you talk too loud.” 

We both turn our smiles on her too, but only Alana smiles back, one eye sneakily open, watching Bev, watching us. As she has done through all the trials that have unrolled this year.

“SORRY” Will whispers in a stage shout and Bev groans again, buries her face in my shirt as Alana’s laughter, low and rich, turns music into the air around us. I let it pluck strings in my mind, imagine it floating around us and away, on the warm breezes, twisting into the light of the sun... Perhaps I too, have drunk a little, little bit. I blame the prior strangeness of my thoughts on that for the moment, and set them aside.There will be time to dwell on the oddities later—on the strange dim rooms of my mind, moonlit and snarling. For now, the sun is warm on my face, and I am surrounded. 

It is hard to stay in those places too long, like this.

“I have to tell you something.” Will’s breath brushes my cheek and so I kiss him, draw laughter from his lips and then a scowl as he presses a finger to my mouth. “No, Hannibal. Have to tell you, you won’t like it.”

Alana settles down again out of the corner of my eye, too polite to be intrusive and I raise my brow at Will, lower my voice to a growl to deepen his scowl. “Oh, won’t I?”

He seems torn between continuing the game begun and actually telling me what is on his mind, but in the end, perhaps in consternation of never telling me at all, blurts out. “I told Jack I wanted to consult on cases again, next year.” 

He frowns, I frown. Bev groans. 

“I just thought—” He wants to look away, but we are done with secrets between us, so he keeps my eyes. “I just thought it might be good, that I could be good, for it.” He reaches a hand up to touch his skull, leans in and the words dance only for me. “Now that I can...you know.”

_ Now that I can control it.  _ It brushes along the reaches of my mind, gentle, but purposeful, enough to send shudders of desire ravaging along my blood.

“I thought that I could help.” 

A little brittle, it tastes there for a breath, a little broken, for what he  _ couldn’t  _ do to help, for what he might have prevented and didn’t, for the parts of me, and perhaps for the parts of him he could not save. But threaded inside, in the stitches that bind our thoughts together, a hum, so minute, I do not believe he even hears the breath of it gasping,  _ I’m curious. _ That same suspension.

I am not sure that I like it, I think, indeed, to protest, though some of me responds, resonating. But his lips are on mine, a languid, open mouth kissed, sultry, his teeth sharp into my skin, catching my lower lip as he trails back away and kissing me again. And already, the beats of want are loud in me. 

_ Hannibal.  _ Directly along my thoughts, and that is an unfair, decidedly conniving—he kisses me again. 

Summer, I decide, is a very long time to have discussions about this. 

“Well, well; are we too late for the orgy?” A voice, followed by a shadow, followed by a heavy weight appears, and Jimmy is lying across all of us all of a sudden, lounging with his hands behind his head. Will pulls away to lie back with a groan and a smile, my own face turning into a huff as I am crushed, Bev awake with a sudden fit of cursing, and all at once we are all laughing.

Brian, standing by himself above us, just shakes his head, settled on his position, but without warning Bev’s legs kick out and he’s stumbling down too, all of us in a mangled heap.

“Don’t spill the wine.” A worried yelp comes from somewhere at the bottom of the pile, and I just spy Alana rolling her eyes, though of course, I brought her beer, still hidden safely in the cooler she has not yet explored. Her very own brew, as Will only has a taste for what I can only presume has been made by dwarves, or worse, muggles, and Bev seems to share his like for it in kind. She ought to have more faith in my hosting abilities. This is not exactly my party, though the blanket is mine, the basket is mine, I brought the food and—well journal, I believe you understand the picture. 

But not a one of us are making our way to any of it if we do not disentangle. I consider suggesting it, or merely pressing them all off of me so I can dig Will out and at least deliver the two of us to safer grounds. The me that I was years ago, who could not understand the simplest of exchanges, could not fathom wrestling on the floor, could not see this through to completion, but as the me that I am now, I simply lie back, turn my face back into the sun and allow them all to shriek around me. 

In a few days we will be leaving for Louisiana and perhaps, if only for a time, the worries can be held at bay. In this moment, at least, my face to the sky, I exhale, allow meaningless peace to roll over me. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of another year, at last.  
> This has been such a wonderful experience, to share all of this with all of you who've read, liked and commented. We were a little (understandably) nervous about posting this year, and to those of you who've stayed with us since the very first entry: Thank you, as always.  
> We will go on a week hiatus, as usual, and then we will start posting the summer on the same schedule as we've been doing. There's a lot of cute stuff ahead (I'm saying this literally, not in the villainous, mustache-twirling, tear-drinking author way XD ) when Hannibal comes home with Will, and invariably begins thinking about what that word means, to them. I can't wait to share it with you.


End file.
